


The Shelter Of Your Wing, Pt II

by RainyDayDecaf



Series: Angels & Fallen Mob AU [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Mob, Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Dismemberment, Drowning (offscreen), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Platonic Kissing, Temporary Character Death, Threats of Violence, Torture, Violence, Vomiting, queer platonic relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyDayDecaf/pseuds/RainyDayDecaf
Summary: They were being watched.  No doubt by some low-ranking Fallen member, sent to make sure Crowley was actually doing what he said he would do; seducing the brother of Gabriel Arch and extracting every last secret he could about the Angels.  In Crowley’s words, it was his most daring con yet, and from the outside it must have looked convincing because Beelzebub had not yet seen through the double con.  That Crowley was, in fact, working as Gabriel’s double agent and using these “dates” as a way to pass over information on the Fallen.And somewhere in the middle was the truth.  That the two of them were caught up in this power struggle with no way out, their very lives dependent on putting up a convincing performance for both of their sides.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Angels & Fallen Mob AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810570
Comments: 48
Kudos: 115





	The Shelter Of Your Wing, Pt II

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo remember when I borrowed @10yrsyart's version of Aziraphale and Crowley to write that MONSTER of a Mob AU in which I left everything on a cliffhanger? I finally got around to writing part two and giving them a happy ending! Yay! *collapses from exhaustion*
> 
> (In all seriousness, @10yrsyart, I hope you're not too miffed that I borrowed your boys again just to torture them mercilessly before I let them have their happy ending. This is the last time, I promise! This series is complete, as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for your encouragement when the first part came out!)

"You really thought you'd get away with it, didn't you, Crowley? You and your _best friend_ , Aziraphale, the two of you had it all planned from the start. Were you gonna run away together, is that it? Go off to some foreign country and live like kings while the rest of us rotted behind bars?"

Crowley gulped, cheeks very pale as Hastur loomed over his kneeling form. His hands were bound behind his back, clothes rumpled, the ever-present sunglasses nowhere in sight. But even now, bound and helpless, soaked from the falling rain and moments away from death, he did not cower or flinch. Rather, he sneered at his fellow Fallen with his chin held high. "Was worth a shot," he muttered.

Hastur gripped his hair tight and wrenched his head back. "What I don’t understand is how you got Gabriel’s little brother to go along with it. He had the best of both worlds, from what I could see. A legitimate businessman with family ties to the most powerful mob this side of the Atlantic… well, _second_ most powerful. And you _somehow_ convinced him to tear down both our organizations and throw our bosses under the bus?"

“Well, when you say it like that, it just sounds like bragging.”

“What did you promise him, Crowley? Money?"

Crowley didn't rise to the bait. Instead he looked out at the river, the rushing dark waters that would soon be his grave. "I promised him oysters in Rome," he said with a faint smile. "Now, if you don't mind… stop with all the _posturing_ and get on with it."

Hastur looked like he might like to keep talking, draw things out a little longer. He did so like making his victims suffer. But the distant wail of police sirens drawing nearer decided him. He raised the gun to Crowley's forehead, teeth bared in a vicious grin, and pulled the trigger.

" _NO!”_

The nightmare shattered. Aziraphale opened his eyes, gasping for breath, but his desperate shout didn't follow him into the waking world. It never did. He was too accustomed to sleeping where others might overhear and coldly tell him off for making a fuss over nothing.

He huddled deeper into the blankets and waited for his pulse to settle back to a normal rhythm, shivering so hard that his teeth chattered. This old cottage was far too drafty. It was clear that no one had bothered with the upkeep for many, many years. When he first walked in, the furniture had all been dusty and covered in sheets, the walls grimy and the carpets stained, the cupboards home to a family of mice. Aziraphale’s first two weeks in residence had been dedicated to painting and scrubbing and scouring until every muscle in his body begged for mercy. He had relocated the mice to the garden outside, stocked the pantry and refrigerator, and bought clothes and knickknacks from the local thrift store to fill up the empty closets and shelves. The desk in the study had become home to his new identification papers, and Aziraphale had been given strict instructions to forget his old name and live out his remaining years as peacefully as he ever could.

To think, he had once thought _witness protection_ was something that only happened in films. Yet here he was, waking up every morning in this quaint little country village instead of languishing in a prison cell where he rightly belonged. No longer A.Z. Fell of Soho, half-brother of Gabriel Arch and ex-member of the criminal organization known as the Angels. He was now Francis Eastgate, an only child and retired florist who knew absolutely nothing about plants. The authorities occasionally called to see how he was coming along or to ask more questions about his past, but for the most part, Aziraphale was left alone to navigate this strange new life.

It was no Rome, that was for certain.

His breath stuttered. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut, chin wobbling.

It had been thirty-five days since Gabriel was killed in a bloody shootout between the Angels and their bitter enemies, the Fallen. A little over a month since Beelzebub was arrested and imprisoned alongside their top lieutenants. One month since his bookshop burned to the ground and Aziraphale woke in the hospital with a stern police sergeant standing over him demanding answers.

Thirty-five days since a car was found sunk in the Thames with the body of Anthony J. Crowley locked inside.

The first ugly sob wrenched from his throat. Giving up, Aziraphale buried his face in the pillow and made no effort to stifle his bereaved wails. For once, it didn't matter how loud he was.

There was no one listening anymore.

* * *

 _One Month Ago  
_ _London_

"Angel!"

From the open door of the bookshop, Aziraphale smiled and made a show of waving cheerily as Crowley wrestled a massive bouquet of flowers out of his car. "My, my! Is that for me?"

“Course it is. Do you see any other handsome men around here?”

“Well, I could name at least one,” Aziraphale said and had the satisfaction of seeing Crowley trip over his own feet. But he recovered and swaggered up to Aziraphale with a debonair smirk, eyes alight. Hefting the bouquet in one arm, Crowley leaned in to peck a kiss on his cheek.

Left cheek. They were being watched. No doubt by some low-ranking Fallen member, sent to make sure Crowley was actually doing what he said he would do; seducing the brother of Gabriel Arch and extracting every last secret he could about the Angels. In Crowley’s words, it was his most daring con yet, and from the outside it must have looked convincing because Beelzebub had not yet seen through the double con. That Crowley was, in fact, working as Gabriel’s double agent and using these “dates” as a way to pass over information on the Fallen to Aziraphale. It was all very complicated, lies within lies, ready to topple at the lightest push.

And somewhere in the middle was the truth. Beneath their feigned romantic relationship lay a very real, very intimate friendship, one which had begun months ago and taken root long before either had known they were enemies. Caught up in this power struggle with no way out, their very lives dependent on putting up a convincing performance for both of their sides.

Oh, not that it was _hard._ Aziraphale really quite enjoyed it when Crowley slipped an arm around his shoulders and made a show of leaning in like he was murmuring sweet nothings. In reality, he was whisper-singing the lyrics to _Bohemian Rhapsody_ while Aziraphale tittered and did his best approximation of bedroom eyes. (And tried not to break character by laughing uproariously. Lord, but they were both _terrible_ actors.)

The two of them only parted once they were safely inside and upstairs in the flat, where Crowley set the flowers on the coffee table and Aziraphale went around to the windows and shut all the blinds. Enclosing them in their own private Eden where any observers would be unable to see what happened next.

They looked at each other for a long moment before collapsing side by side on the couch, like puppets with cut strings. Crowley tugged off his sunglasses and tipped his head to lean on Aziraphale’s shoulder, sighing when he was met with gentle fingers stroking through his hair. Without the sunglasses, his eyes looked haggard, sunken in, like he had aged ten years since they saw each other last.

“Hate this,” Crowley mumbled.

“I know, dear boy,” Aziraphale said. He wished he could scoop Crowley up in his arms, tuck him into bed and not let him rise until he had slept for a century. Between the two of them, Crowley had the more difficult and dangerous job, flitting back and forth between Gabriel and Beelzebub, feigning loyalty to both sides while secretly working against them. Aziraphale had no idea how he managed it, and he felt a bit useless stuck here at the bookshop, dutifully playing his part in the deception. Which really just amounted to keeping his head down and letting Gabriel think he was properly cowed, too fearful for Crowley’s life to even consider rebellion.

It wouldn’t last forever. The stalemate would only go on until one side felt they had the upper hand, and then… well. It would be the war to end all wars, metaphorically speaking. There would doubtless be a great deal of bloodshed on both sides, and he and Crowley would have to act quickly not to be caught up in it. For now, their plans were still nebulous, and Aziraphale had been doing his best not to overthink it and let his anxieties get the better of him. It was easier during the times when Crowley was with him, here in the bookshop, when they could shut out the rest of the world and pretend it was like old times again. Just the two of them surrounded by books, laughing and drinking and avoiding all talk of their pasts, not a care in the world…

"Hey. Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale stirred from his thoughts, ready to rise at once if Crowley asked it of him. If he needed food, water, a pillow, _anything_ , he would gladly fetch it to make his rest more comfortable. But Crowley snaked both his arms around Aziraphale's bicep and kept him firmly anchored to the couch.

"No, 'm fine, don't get up. Just wanted to ask you something."

"Yes? Ask me what?"

"But if you don't want to tell me, it's okay," Crowley amended hastily. "I know it's personal, I get it, you can tell me to sod off if I'm crossing a line."

"Crowley."

"Right, uh." Crowley licked his lips. "When you worked for Gabriel…"

Aziraphale flinched. And he immediately felt awful about it when Crowley released his arm and shuffled over to the other end of the couch. "No, yeah, sorry, too personal. Shouldn't've said anything.”

"No, it's alright.” Aziraphale reached out to him but hesitated to make contact. "I just wasn't expecting it. I'm not… I've never spoken of my family to anyone who wasn't already aware of the truth. In polite company, I usually say I have no living relatives just to avoid the question."

Crowley snorted. "I'd do the same. Wanker doesn't deserve you in his life."

 _You're so kind to me,_ Aziraphale thought and wished he could say it out loud. Crowley said things like that so _effortlessly,_ with no prior thought, and it never failed to make his chest swell with affection for this wonderful man. But Crowley always grew skittish when Aziraphale tried to call attention to that innate goodness, and even the slightest hint of gratitude was liable to make him roll his eyes and storm out of the room. The best he could do was give Crowley's knee a brief squeeze and hope his expression conveyed what he could not say out loud.

"My dear, what did you want to ask?"

"Just was… wondering," Crowley faltered. "Wondering what you did for him? Back when you were a full-time Angel, what was your job? You already know about what I do for the Fallen, obviously. Lots of spying and sneaking around, digging up blackmail and whatnot. But I can't really picture you doing that."

"No, I imagine not," Aziraphale murmured. He folded his hands in his lap, debating with himself and trying to remain calm about it. The mere thought of sharing it, speaking of it out loud, was enough to set his heart tripping over itself in panic. The dreadful certainty of how disgusted Crowley would be, the secret terror that he might decide Aziraphale wasn't _worth_ all of this, that he might up and abandon him, walk out that door and never come back… such feelings had plagued him from the moment they met, in the early days when he had assumed Crowley was an ordinary man with an ordinary job. A banker, perhaps, or maybe something to do with computers. Crowley had once joked about being in telemarketing, clearly expecting that to put him off, but Aziraphale had nothing against people just trying to earn a living, even in the most annoying fashion possible.

 _I can never tell this man who I really am,_ Aziraphale had thought at the time as he watched Crowley saunter through the stacks and pluck out books to skim through. _He would never understand, he would look at me and see something inhuman. He would be so afraid, and I don't ever want him to be afraid, not of me…_

But then one night, Crowley had crashed through his door, frantic and bloodied and desperate for help, and Aziraphale had learned that their worlds were not so far apart as he had imagined. He looked at Crowley now, at his earnest eyes, the tension in his slim body. Like a wild animal that had learned humans were not to be trusted, always ready to bolt at any given moment.

Yet he had never run from Aziraphale.

Maybe… maybe he would understand. He might not accept, he might still find it repugnant, but he would understand.

"…I used to do Sandalphon's job," Aziraphale said, slow and halting. It felt so odd to confess it out loud after a lifetime of silence. "I don't think there's a proper title for it. But… _enforcer_ might come close."

Crowley inched a little closer. Aziraphale wished Crowley would reach for him, take his hand again. But he held his distance and his silence, waiting patiently for Aziraphale to go on.

"It wasn't so bad at first," Aziraphale said, then had to laugh cynically at his own wording. "For a given value of _bad_ , I suppose. I had been raised in the knowledge that Gabriel would one day head the family business, alongside our sister, Michael. My purpose was to be their right hand and obey them _without question._ Keep them safe while they worked. Interrogate or threaten our enemies as needed. And we have _many_ enemies. I learned to shoot a gun years before I learned how to drive."

He paused. "You know, I don't think I ever _did_ learn how to drive…"

"Did you ever have to kill anyone?"

Aziraphale winced at the bluntness, and Crowley immediately leaned into his side with an apologetic noise. "Sorry. Should've softened that a bit."

"I don't think any amount of softness in the world could make that question better." Aziraphale took a deep breath, relishing the warmth of Crowley pressed against his arm and shoulder. "And the answer is, yes. I've… killed a number of people. At their command."

Silence. And Crowley did not leave the room. He did not flinch away or put distance between them. When Aziraphale dared to peek down at his face, he was only frowning a little. Not at all the appalled reaction Aziraphale had been expecting.

"…sorry you had to do that."

Aziraphale scoffed, anger surging through him. Not at Crowley, but at himself. “I didn't _have_ to do anything. At the time, I told myself it was perfectly justified. Murder was wrong, but protecting my family was right, so it all balanced out, I told myself. And the people I was hurting couldn't be all that innocent if they were involved with the mob, they must have done _something_ to deserve it…”

His voice was shaking, but he couldn't stop talking, the words pouring out of him as memories crashed through his head one after the other. Faces he could barely remember, voices pleading for their lives or spewing vitriol in his face. He had always tried to make it quick, to give them that small mercy in their final moments, as if it made _any_ difference. Mostly, he had tried not to weep after it was done.

“…I was so twisted up inside back then. My siblings could do no wrong in my eyes. I was wholeheartedly convinced that they were without fault and everything they asked of me was somehow serving a greater purpose. It took me a shameful number of years to tear the veil aside and see them for who they really were. And Gabriel only became worse after Michael’s passing. I finally left the day he told me he wanted to promote me.”

“ _Promote_ you?”

“For 'excellence and efficiency',” Aziraphale quoted with venom. “I’d never had a very strong constitution to begin with, and I think he could sense my resolve wavering. He had a grand speech prepared about what a _wonderful_ brother I was, how much he appreciated the things I did… that it was my _duty_ to step up and take Michael’s place. As if I should be proud of the sort of people we were!”

"Christ," Crowley whispered. He was still leaning against Aziraphale, even now, even after hearing all of this. "That's the most fucked up thing I've ever heard."

A pained, somewhat manic laugh wracked Aziraphale. "Yes, I'm sure. It’s not every day you learn the bookseller from the corner shop has a body count."

Crowley jerked his head up and gave a little tug on Aziraphale's elbow. "That's not what I meant. I mean what Gabriel did to _you._ What your whole family did, that's fucked up!"

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. "How do you mean?"

"They all… they brainwashed you! Maybe not literally, but close enough! They got into your head and made you doubt your own judgement. Got you believing whatever was most convenient to get you on board with their plans!"

"Well yes, I don't deny that was their intention," Aziraphale said, still a little lost. "But that does in no way excuse my own part. I can't put the blame for my sins entirely on their shoulders."

"Well, I damn well can!" Crowley exclaimed. His cheeks had gone quite red now with righteous fury. "Look, I’ve done bad things, too. Maybe I never hurt anyone, but I’ve put them in a position to _be_ hurt, so that’s got to count for something. But at least I never had any illusions that the things I was doing were _right._ ”

"That still doesn’t—”

"And you were a kid when it all started, and the people you loved and trusted were telling you there was nothing wrong with it, so of course you believed them! Your brother and sister all but _groomed you_ to be their perfect little enforcer!"

Aziraphale couldn't help snorting at that. "Oh, now that's a bit extreme. You're making it sound like some sort of _cult_ …"

"They _are_ a bloody—!" Crowley made an aggravated noise and shoved himself to his feet. "Right, that's it. Where's the list?"

"In the kitchen. Why?"

Crowley stomped off to the kitchen, calling over his shoulder. "Because I'm adding a new thing! _Find a therapist for Aziraphale._ "

"For Heaven's sake,” Aziraphale said under his breath. He stood up and followed after Crowley. “I don't need a therapist!"

"You need one more than I need one, and that's saying something," Crowley retorted. He had already fetched The List from the drawer where Aziraphale kept it hidden beneath the silverware, and now he slapped it on the counter, pen in hand. The list was nothing special at first glance. Merely a scrap of stationary with the cheeky title _Honeymoon In Rome_ and a string of haphazard bullet points scrawled in both their handwriting. _Try the oysters_ was the first item, followed by other such far-flung fantasies as _Sleep for three days straight,_ and _See the sights (all of them_ ), and _Wear matching tourist shirts._ Crowley had also added _Convince Aziraphale to wear a speedo at the pool,_ which Aziraphale had crossed off with impunity, just as Crowley had crossed off _Learn to speak Italian,_ because apparently learning was Strictly Not Allowed while on holiday in a foreign country.

"Find… therapist… for…” Crowley ended the sentence with a flourish and underlined it several times. “There! No getting out of it now.”

“I can assure you, I will be crossing that off the moment you turn your back,” Aziraphale informed him.

“Fine, but you know the rules,” Crowley said with a dastardly flash of teeth. “If one of us crosses something off the list, the other can do the same. Don’t make me take your oysters away.”

Aziraphale gasped with a little more drama than necessary, hand over his heart. “You _wouldn’t.”_

“Oh, but I _would.”_

“Horrid fiend! You know that’s the one thing I look forward to the most!”

“I could literally go out right now and buy you oysters from the seafood place down the street.”

Aziraphale sniffed haughtily and whisked the pen and paper from his grasp. Crowley made some attempts to take them back, though for all his flailing and indignant squawking, he wasn’t trying very hard, the game given away by how he couldn’t stop snickering. Aziraphale held him at bay with one hand and managed to add a new bullet point that was barely legible.

 _Make Crowley learn how to dance._ _Proper_ _dancing._

Crowley craned to read the new addition and groaned. “ _Aziraphale_ …”

“What?” Aziraphale asked, all bland innocence. “It’s a reasonable request of my fake-husband on our fake-honeymoon.”

“You _know_ I’m going to cross that out!”

“By all means, do. But remember our rules.”

“Or.” Crowley snatched the list from his hand and sprinted out of the kitchen, cackling all the way. Aziraphale followed, but at a leisurely pace, more than confident in his eventual victory.

“Now really, that was just childish—”

Back in the living room, he found Crowley standing in front of the couch, stock still. As Aziraphale began to ask what was wrong, Crowley held up a hand and mouthed, “Quiet!”

Aziraphale halted at the panicked look in Crowley’s eyes, heart in his throat, the playful mood entirely forgotten in favor of cold fear. Once assured that he wouldn’t speak, Crowley tiptoed in the direction of the couch. No, to the gramophone beside the couch. It was an old piece, completely nonfunctional, but Aziraphale was fond of how it looked in his living space, a relic of the past. Crowley leaned closer to the gramophone, reached inside the golden horn…

…and withdrew something small and black roughly the size of a fingertip. Some type of electronic device that Aziraphale couldn’t identify from a distance, but it wasn’t much of a stretch to deduce the purpose.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, the horror of it, the violation _in his own home_ dragging a whimper from his throat. Crowley gingerly set the device (camera? microphone?) on the coffee table and took a few quick steps to seize Aziraphale by the wrist, who let himself be pulled along in a daze. They ended up in the bathroom where Crowley settled Aziraphale on the edge of the bathtub while he scoured the vents, the baseboards, the mirrors and light fixtures. Finally, he shoved towels under the door and nodded, easing out a careful breath.

“Okay… okay, nothing in here. We can talk.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale whispered.

“Positive,” Crowley said. “Only perverts bug the bathroom. Nobody’s interested in hearing their mark take a piss.”

Aziraphale curled his fingers on the rim of the tub, lightheaded all of a sudden. “They heard everything,” he said dully. “They _know.”_

“No, no, they don’t, they _can’t.”_ Crowley paced around rapidly, and despite his words, he looked nowhere near confident, hands buried in his hair and ruffling it beyond help. “I didn’t notice the bug when I was here last, it must’ve been planted just yesterday or the day before. Trust me, the Fallen don’t wait around once they have proof of betrayal.”

“Or it might be my side,” Aziraphale said. His own voice sounded far too calm to his ears, too accepting of this unfolding disaster. “Gabriel has spoken highly of a woman named Uriel, he’s hired her in the past for surveillance-related work…”

“Alright, then that might not be so bad!” Crowley insisted. “We didn’t say anything incriminating, I don’t think? Just complained about our jobs a bit, and we left the room before we started talking about Rome… and those microphone aren’t the best quality anyway, half the words you get are muffled garbage…”

“But there could be more!” Aziraphale cried. “They could be _everywhere_. The kitchen might be full of them! They might… oh Lord, Crowley, you have to go! You’re not safe here!”

“We’re not safe _anywhere,_ but we knew that already,” Crowley said. “I’m sorry, I should’ve figured something like this would happen. I should’ve been sweeping this place top to bottom every time I came over.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said firmly, “I meant that you should leave London. Leave Britain entirely, if you can.”

Crowley froze. Very slowly rounded on him. “You want me to _what?”_

“You should go today, before they notice anything amiss,” Aziraphale said. He was trying to be reasonable, or at least to _sound_ reasonable, and never mind that he was gripping the tub hard enough to make the bones in his fingers ache. “You were alone when you tried to run the first time, but we can make sure it goes differently. I can… oh, I don’t know, I can do _something._ Throw them off the trail somehow. It’s far less risky than attempting to take on two criminal empires by ourselves!”

Something very complicated was happening to Crowley’s face, as if he was experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion in under three seconds. But eventually, he settled on solemn worry and nodded. “Actually, you know what? That sounds like a good idea. No use trying to save us both, I’m sure you’ll look after yourself.”

Aziraphale felt himself go very pale. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked them away furiously. Strange. He had expected more of a fight than that. He had foreseen hours of anguished arguments before he could finally convince Crowley to flee and save himself. But this was the better outcome, surely, and he was _not_ going to examine the chasm that had just ripped open his chest at those flippant words.

Clearing his throat, pulling himself together, Aziraphale stood. “Right. That’s settled. We ought to get a plan together…”

“ _Come off it!_ ” Crowley bellowed, arms thrown up. “I’m not leaving you! I can’t believe you’d think that even for a second!”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, ashamed of how his voice broke. “Please be _sensible.”_

“No, you be sensible!” He grabbed Aziraphale’s face in both hands and gave him a gentle shake for emphasis. “If I leave now with no warning, they’ll _definitely_ know something is up. And they won’t waste any time. Sandalphon’ll show up tomorrow and pump you full of truth serum first thing. He’ll _torture_ you to find out where I’ve gone.”

“Gabriel won’t allow that. He has _never_ allowed…”

“First time for everything, angel.”

He shook his head and pushed Crowley’s hands away. “And even if that _does_ happen, there’s no reason to let that stop you. Crowley, you _must_ put your own safety before mine.”

“Says who?”

“Says… oh, do stop being ridiculous! We are dealing with forces well beyond our control, and I can’t…”

He stopped, stumbling over the words, throat gone tight like he had swallowed a knife. _I can’t bear to lose you. Not now. Not after all the time we’ve spent together, all the things I’ve learned that have only made you more precious to me. I never knew how much you liked Queen, and that you’ve dabbled in horticulture and your dream is to have your own garden and drive around in a vintage car you fixed up yourself. That you love children, if only for the mischief they get up to, and you really do like helping people as long as no one says thank you to your face. That you’re so much kinder and braver than I ever knew, so full of optimism in spite of our terrible circumstances…_

“Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale covered his face with his hands, overcome. Breaths stuttered, chest heaving, it took everything in him to hold back the messy emotions that wanted to come spilling forth at his feet. That wouldn’t _help_ anything right now, he needed to pull himself together, but the more he tried, the more it hurt to resist. One tear escaped without his consent, slipping out between his fingers, and he was _mortified_ when Crowley saw it.

“Oh shit,” Crowley said, sounding quite panicked. His hands hovered uncertainly. “Oh shit, oh shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you… Aziraphale, don’t cry, please, I take it back! Well no, not really, I haven’t changed my mind. I… shit, hang on.”

He heard a cupboard slam open, some more cursing and rifling, and when Aziraphale dared to look up, he was met by a very contrite Crowley offering up a box of tissues. The sight was so absurd that Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a weak chuckle. “Oh, my dear boy,” he said thickly, but couldn’t articulate much beyond that. He took a tissue instead and dabbed at his eyes and nose. “You shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

“Hey, come on, you’ve seen me worse,” Crowley said with a little wobbly smile. “Remember that time I walked in with a stab wound and bled all over your sheets? Or that time I had a panic attack and stress cleaned your shop?”

Aziraphale sniffled and blew his nose. “I couldn’t find anything for days,” he complained. “My favorite copy of _Hamlet_ is still missing from the playwrights' section."

“Oh. Right. Um.” Crowley shoved a hand into his jacket and tugged out a small paperback, very battered and dogeared. So well-loved that Aziraphale would have known it blindfolded. “Sort of, er… borrowed it. I didn’t mean to! I was in the middle of skimming it the other day and had to run out when Beelz called…”

“You’ve been reading it?” Aziraphale said, stunned. “You? _Hamlet?_ I thought you hated the tragedies.”

Crowley tucked the book away again, ruffling his hair with one hand and avoiding eye contact in that way he did when he was horrifically embarrassed. “Well, I mean, I can always skip the murder-y bits. Mostly I’ve just been reading the monologues, you know me, I like a good monologue.”

“…I do know.” Aziraphale ducked his head and wrung the tissue in his hands. “You always prefer the funny ones. The happy ending.” He didn’t bother to state the obvious—that stories such as theirs were not meant for happy endings.

Crowley plucked the tissue from his hands, letting it fall, and replaced it with the Rome list. “Listen. Look, just listen. Can you do me a favor and read that off to me? Just read it, out loud.”

Sniffing one last time, Aziraphale blinked until the words came into focus. “T… try the oysters. Wear matching tourist shirts.”

“Get thrown out of every pub,” Crowley said. “Take a road trip to the countryside. Go for a picnic.”

“Crowley?”

“None of it’s worth doing,” Crowley said softly, “if you’re not there with me. Understand? It’s you _and_ Rome, or it’s nothing. And don’t even _try_ to say anything stupid like you’re not worth it or I’m better off without—”

Aziraphale threw his arms around him, embracing him, and he only came to his senses when he heard Crowley hiss in discomfort. “Oh, forgive me! I didn’t mean to catch you off guard…”

“No, s’fine!” Crowley reached back to secure Aziraphale’s arms around his waist and buried his nose in the crook of his neck. “Was… it was nice. Good. Like being caught off guard.”

Well. That was a first. Gingerly, Aziraphale tightened his hold until he heard Crowley give a satisfied hum. He couldn’t recall the last time he had hugged or been hugged by anyone. He _did_ remember being told once that he tended to squeeze too hard, cling too tightly, but Crowley seemed to have no issues with the amount of pressure. He had wound his own arms around Aziraphale and curled his fingers into his shirt, keeping their bodies securely tucked together. And Aziraphale didn’t think he was imagining the gentle puff of air against his neck, exhaled in a deep sigh. Was it relief? Dare he hope it was contentment?

“We could… do this more often,” Crowley suggested. “Hugging. Good for the cover.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Yes, for the cover, of course. It would be appropriate.”

Neither of them let go.

Crowley laughed, a helpless little sound. “Aziraphale, I…”

“Yes?”

“…I can’t wait to go to Rome with you.”

Tears flooded his eyes again, threatening to ruin the moment. Aziraphale swallowed them back, hearing everything Crowley couldn’t say in those words and rejoicing. “I… oh, I feel much the same.” He smiled. “We’re going to have such a _smashing_ time.”

Crowley groaned and pulled back. “Nope. You ruined it. Absolutely no way I’m being fake-married to someone who talks like that.”

“Like what? I only meant that I look forward to all the _scrummy_ food…”

“Stop. No.”

“Why, it’s going to be downright tickety-boo!”

Crowley’s pained groan followed them all the way out of the bathroom. Now, knowing that they were being listened to, they took greater caution with what they said as Crowley scoured the flat for any additional microphones. Only one more was found by Aziraphale’s writing desk downstairs, and Crowley made a great show of accidentally spilling his drink into the drawer where it was hidden (after making sure there were no books at risk, of course).

“Better leave the other one, so they don’t get suspicious,” Crowley said in an undertone later as he was preparing to leave. “I doubt they’ll listen in while you’re here alone. But just in case, try not to change your routine from normal, yeah?”

Aziraphale nodded, fully aware that he would be getting no sleep tonight. Thankfully, that was a common enough occurrence that it shouldn’t arouse suspicion. “Please do be careful,” he said, as he always did whenever Crowley left. "Mind how you go."

“Always do,” Crowley said, cocky grin back in place. But it didn’t reach his eyes. They never did, these days. He put his sunglasses on and made as if to turn for the door. “Well, then…”

“There’s something I want to give you,” Aziraphale said quickly. He fumbled a little with pulling the small box out of his pocket and held it out nervously. “For when we… well.” He lowered his voice. “To make it easier when we go to Rome. You don’t have to, of course, I just thought it might be strange if we didn’t have…”

But Crowley had already snatched the box from his hand and opened it. He stared at the pair of matching wedding bands laid out side by side, for once completely expressionless. Aziraphale wrung his hands. They were old, those rings. He had bought them years ago on a whim, from a rather sketchy internet site, and was happily surprised to learn later that the gems were quite authentic. But now he looked at them again, the designs were surely too gaudy, too antiquated for someone like Crowley. He would want something fashionable and sleek, not a ring that looked like it ought to belong in a museum.

Crowley looked up. And his voice, when he spoke, was oddly brittle. “Can I put it on?”

“Of course, yes,” Aziraphale said. That was what they were meant for, obviously, to be worn. But he caught his breath when Crowley took his hand and sunk to one knee, right there in the middle of the bookshop. “ _Oh.”_

Crowley, the absolute demon, had the gall to smirk at his flustered reaction. “I’d make a soppy speech, but you’ve sort of put me on the spot here…”

“No, no, that’s quite alright,” Aziraphale said, breathless as he watched Crowley take one of the engagement rings and slide it in place on his left hand. It was a little tight, but not enough to be uncomfortable, and he couldn’t stop gazing at it. And at Crowley’s fingers so carefully cradling his own.

“My turn?”

Well, there was nothing for it. Aziraphale joined him in kneeling and took the other ring. Crowley presented his hand, and Aziraphale composed himself and slid the ring onto the appropriate finger.

And he made an unfortunate discovery.

“Um.”

Crowley tilted his hand. The ring slipped off his finger without any resistance and would have landed on the floor if Aziraphale hadn’t caught it first. It took everything in him not to laugh at Crowley’s affronted look. Like the ring had personally offended him by daring not to fit.

"Oh my. I don’t think I thought this through. It’s _much_ too big. I’ll have to find you another one.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Crowley said and snatched the ring back before he could blink. He tried it on a few other fingers, frowning when none of them worked, and finally shoved it in his pocket. “I’ve got a chain back at my place. Can wear it around my neck. Much cooler that way.”

“Ah. Yes. I’m sure that will do nicely.”

Neither of them seemed to know what to say after that. They rose back to their feet, Crowley helping Aziraphale up, and savored one last, long embrace before Crowley took his leave. Aziraphale stood in the doorway and watched him saunter out to the car, affecting a casual air as he blew a kiss at the bookshop and drove away. He sighed to himself, left alone once more with only his fears for company.

“Things going well with the new boyfriend?”

Aziraphale gave a start and turned to his neighbor. Tracy was just closing up her shop for the day, but had lingered to watch Crowley’s departure, a knowing twinkle in her eye.

It took a moment to pull together his scattered thoughts. “Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, not entirely untruthful. “I’m feeling quite blessed of late.”

Tracy smiled warmly, tittering. “It’s been the talk of the neighborhood lately, you know. You and your young man. I know you’re a private person, but we’re all so happy for you! 'That poor Mr. Fell,’ I always said, ‘he needs someone to keep him company in that old shop.’"

“Oh. Is that so?"

“You ought to bring him down to the pub one of these days. Show him off to the rest of us."

Aziraphale nodded awkwardly as Tracy walked away and wondered why she, or anyone else, should care so much about his affairs. Ever since he came to Soho, his fellow shop owners had made a point of trying to chat with him, invite him out to parties and the like, and it left him torn between suspicion of their motives and mild bemusement at their simple lives. How lovely it must be to exist in their world, blissfully ignorant to the much darker one lurking under the surface.

But he supposed it was too late to befriend them now. Very soon, he would either be dead or in Rome, living a new life with Crowley at his side. He fiddled with his ring, heart skipping a beat. He would do better in the next life, Aziraphale promised himself. He would be the sort of person who befriended his neighbors, who lived a peaceful life and didn’t get involved in anything dangerous.

And he would make sure Crowley had a place in that life, if he so chose. If they made it that far.

The phone at his desk rang. Drawing in a steadying breath, Aziraphale went back inside to answer it. He already knew who it was. His brother always called after Crowley’s visits.

“Gabriel, hello. How are you?”

“No time for niceties,” Gabriel said, far more brusque than usual. “Listen, things are moving along faster than we anticipated.”

Aziraphale went cold inside. “What… what do you mean?”

“We have all the information we need. We’re preparing to move against Beelzebub within the next week, to take them out along with their top lieutenants. The rest of the Fallen will have the choice between joining us or going down with them, but I’m sure most will decide to be reasonable. And as for Crowley…”

“What about him?”

Gabriel sighed. “Look, I know you have a _thing_ for him…”

“No…”

“He’s just too close to Beelzebub. I can’t trust he won’t tip them off. I’d really rather just tie up that loose end without any big fuss.”

“But…"

“You don’t have to be there when it happens,” Gabriel said soothingly. “Don’t worry, I know you don’t have the stomach for this sort of work anymore. You can stay out of it, Sandalphon will be more than happy to…”

“Wait! Let me do it! I’ll do it!”

Silence. Aziraphale held his breath, twisting the cord in his hand.

“You will?” Gabriel said, sounding taken aback.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. It was frighteningly easy to alter his tone, slip back into that old mindset. _Obey. Comply. Don’t think, don’t question_. “To be completely honest with you, I’ve begun to have second thoughts about leaving the organization. Running a _bookshop,_ really, what was I thinking? I think I… may have made a terrible mistake.”

“You think so?” Oh, Gabriel sounded pleased now.

“I would like the chance to prove myself again,” Aziraphale said, mind racing. “Send Crowley to me tonight. You said yourself there’s nothing more you need from him, yes? And you know my methods, you know I don’t like to draw things out. No chance he’ll slip away and warn his friends in the Fallen. It will be…” He ground his teeth. “…efficient.”

Gabriel hummed. “Well! I wasn’t expecting this, but I have to say, it’s definitely one of your better surprises! I always knew you’d see reason _eventually,_ but sometimes I forget how stubborn you are.”

Aziraphale forced a laugh. “I know, I really ought to work on that. But I want you to know, I do care _very_ much for the future of our family. I always have, I just needed some perspective. And between us… Crowley’s _really_ not the most pleasant man to work with.”

“Ahhh.” Gabriel chuckled. “Familiarity breeds contempt, eh?”

“Hm. Yes, well. Something like that.”

“Alright, little brother, I’ll give you this one. But remember, as much as I love you, there are only so many second chances I’m willing to hand out. Don’t mess this up.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, the words _I love you_ ringing in his ears, loud and damning. “I understand. I won’t fail. You have my word. My oath, even.”

“Call me when it’s done. I’ll send someone to dispose of the corpse.”

Aziraphale agreed, went through the rest of the conversation by muscle memory, and set down the receiver. Then he went upstairs to the bathroom and threw up.

* * *

 _Present Day  
_ _Tadfield_

He only cried for ten minutes before drying his tears and dragging himself out of bed. Aziraphale felt immensely guilty doing so, as he had every day since coming to the cottage. He couldn’t shake the notion that someone in proper mourning ought to languish in bed from dawn to dusk, refusing to eat or bathe, wallowing in their loss and letting the world turn on without them. That was how all of his favored protagonists seemed to handle grief.

But Aziraphale was not so strong as all of that. And this was not the first time his world had fallen apart. In the days following Michael’s funeral, he had gotten up at his usual time, cooked himself his favorite breakfast, and endured his family’s fury over his apparent lack of care. _How can you stand there and stuff your face,_ Gabriel had demanded, _while our sister is cold in the ground?_

Of course, he understood himself a little better now. Aziraphale was a creature of habit, always had been. In times of suffering and stress, he stubbornly clung to routine as a way to cope and soothe himself with the promise that everything would be alright one day. Like an automaton, Aziraphale would throw himself into whatever work was in front of him, drown his spiraling thoughts in the mundanity of daily life, so he wouldn’t sink into despair. It was so ingrained in him to pluck up and carry on as normal that he hardly knew what else to do with himself.

So he rose from bed, just like any other day, and showered and brushed his teeth. Then he dressed and shaved and combed his hair without once looking in the mirror, and dragged his feet into the kitchen for breakfast. Plain toast and porridge with sugar and cinnamon, and coffee from one of those awful modern machines that required prepackaged _k-cups_ to function. Such waste, he tutted in to himself. The environment would never thank the inventor of these things, Crowley had always been particularly vehement about…

Aziraphale paused. Took a deep breath and shut off the machine. Coffee was an awful habit anyway. He didn’t even like it all that much. Water would do just as well. He filled a glass and ate his breakfast, his tired body carrying him through the motions while his mind remained blessedly empty, save for the ever-growing list of chores he would be tackling today. Like weeding the garden out back, that alone would take him all morning, and then he really ought to run out and pick up some milk and eggs, and by the time he came back to the cottage it would be time for a late lunch or perhaps an early dinner depending on what he was in the mood for...

Deep inside, his aching heart cried out _Crowley, Crowley, Crowley_. Aziraphale took his empty bowl to wash in the sink and scrubbed a little harder than necessary, briefly catching a glimpse of his reflection in the window. His eyes still looked a little red, but maybe he could pass it off as allergies. Yes, that was what he would say. Had to blend in, after all. The locals already speculated about him. Aziraphale had overheard them on a number of occasions, wondering why he lived alone in his retirement, why no family or friends ever came to visit… or worse staring at his left hand and biting their tongues against a whole slew of _other_ questions they had no business asking.

_Crowley… Crowley… Crowley…_

Hanging up the hand towel, Aziraphale went to gather his coat and shoes. His bedroom was just down the hall, and the temptation was there to crawl back into bed and never rise again. But with an effort of will, he resisted and stepped out the front door.

* * *

 _One Month Ago  
_ _London_

“Ready?”

Aziraphale nodded, hands clasped in his lap, feeling oddly disconnected from the world outside of the car. It was early morning, but the rising sun was shrouded by heavy clouds and fog, and the gray waters of the river before them provided a bleak backdrop for what they were about to do.

In the driver’s seat beside him, Crowley dialed a number on his burner phone. It was fascinating to watch the change in his friend, from nervous and tense to sneering and languid in the blink of an eye.

“Morning, Gabe! Can I call you that? You know what, I’m gonna. I feel like we’re on a first name basis by now.”

Crowley paused and flashed a smirk. “Oh, _where’s Aziraphale,_ you ask?”

“ _GABRIEL!_ ” Aziraphale wailed with all the distress he could muster. Judging by Crowley’s wide-eyed expression, it was more than believable. "I'm so sorry, he overpowered me! He took my gun! He's going to _kill me,_ Gabriel, please you must help me—!"

"Oi, shut it," Crowley snarled and made a fake punch motion with his fist. Aziraphale immediately slapped his own forearm. It didn’t hurt much, but the audible strike of flesh on flesh would tell Gabriel a very different story. "Now, I know this is probably just a biiig misunderstanding, but it seems Aziraphale here had orders to _eliminate_ me. Said something about you not needing me anymore? Imagine that! After everything I did for you, after all your promises, you went and betrayed me? Well, here's how I feel about _that.”_

Crowley mimed another punch. Aziraphale hit himself several times in quick succession, crying out with each one, and he began to sob hysterically, peppering in the occasional _No please!_ and _I don't deserve this!_

"What's that, you want me to stop hitting your baby brother? Come on, you can beg a little better than that. And you know what? I'll bet he can to. Should we find out?"

Crowley fell silent, listening intently. Aziraphale couldn't hear what Gabriel was saying, but he could tell by the tone that Gabriel was trying to calmly negotiate. Which wasn't necessarily a good sign. A _calm_ Gabriel was a dangerous one; vicious and unpredictable and prone to irrational decisions. Aziraphale feared that state, yet now he was also counting on it. He wasn’t so foolish as to think Gabriel cared for his safety… but the blow to his brother’s pride ought to be enough to spur him to violence against his enemies.

"Yeah, no, I'm not really buying that," Crowley said with a careless flick of his hand. "Let's get one thing straight. No amount of money or threats is going to get Aziraphale back. Not in one piece, anyway… yeah? Well, joke's on you, that won't work anymore. I was never on your side! I've been passing information to the Fallen this whole time. Everything that happened that day was a setup to get me in on your organization, you stupid, _stupid_ Yank!"

Gabriel's voice rose quite a bit at that. Crowley grinned wildly, and Aziraphale had to cover his mouth to muffle a laugh. "Look, look, I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm gonna have to pass you on to my supervisor. Beelzebub's feeling generous today, so we won’t straight up kill him, as long as you meet our demands. In the meantime, I'll keep Aziraphale nice and comfortable. Five star accommodations, three meals a day… or who knows, maybe I'll just lock him in the boot of my car for a week, see how he likes that?"

Aziraphale shrieked on cue and started babbling about being claustrophobic and _Please, you can’t do this! Don't hurt me, please!_

"My boss’ll be in touch in one hour with our demands. Hang tight ‘til then. Bye now, Gabe!”

With that, Crowley hung up and leaned out the window to chuck his burner phone into the river. He settled back into his seat, sucked in a deep breath and leaned on the steering wheel, wheezing out a muffled scream in his folded arms.

“ _Did that just happen?”_

"You did it!" Aziraphale exclaimed. He leaned over to give Crowley's back an encouraging pat. "You were _wonderful_ , Crowley. You really sounded like one of those dastardly villains from the cinema!"

“Blimey, forget me, can we talk about you for a sec?” Crowley looked at him over his sunglasses and whistled impressively. “That whole thing was brilliant! They should hire you to play Hamlet, all the time, in every play from now on! I never knew you had it in you.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, flushed with victory and more than a little tickled to have his acting skills praised. “I did take part in some theatrical productions when I was much younger. I daresay I could have made a proper career of it, had my life taken a different turn.”

“I’d’ve loved to see it,” Crowley said. And the most amazing thing was how _sincere_ he sounded, like he would truly not object to being out in the audience when Aziraphale made his debut onstage, cheering and showering him with rose petals. (Oh dear, that was a fantasy for another time.)

Crowley dug around in his pocket and pulled out his second burner phone, rapidly scrolling through the contacts and selecting Beelzebub’s number. He caught Aziraphale’s eye solemnly before turning his focus to the conversation.

“It’s done. Message delivered.”

Crowley listened a moment and pulled a face. “Yeah, right. Sure I’ll believe that. I’m not that stupid, Beelzebub. Remember when you told Hastur and Ligur to take me out of the city and set me on fire? Fun times, right? You’ll get the location of the little brother once I’m out of the country. I’m already handing you Gabriel on a silver platter, no strings attached, so you’d better not even _think_ of screwing me over.”

Aziraphale took his hand, and Crowley squeezed it tight as he listened to whatever his boss was saying. It must have been something quite uncomfortable and threatening because Crowely hardly said a word in response, just listened and waited and ended the call with a muttered, “Fine. Yeah. Ciao.” And with that, the second burner phone found its home in the river.

“Right. That’s that. Beelzebub’ll be making that call to Gabriel in an hour. They’ll set up a face-to-face meeting to discuss terms…”

“…which will be a trap,” Aziraphale said, privately shocked at how easily the words came. He was about to take part in the murder of his own _brother_ , for Heaven’s sake. But whatever guilt he felt was ruthlessly squashed down and locked up tight, in the same little box where he kept the memories of his victims. “A trap that we can only pray Gabriel will walk right into…”

“…and hopefully not walk out of,” Crowley said grimly. “With any luck, they’ll just end up offing each other and save us the trouble…”

“…but if they don’t,” Aziraphale concluded, “Sergeant Shadwell will have his men standing by to arrest whoever remains.”

“Right,” Crowley muttered. His hands rubbed nervously along the steering wheel. “You sure we can trust this Shadwell? I’ve never met any police officer who wasn’t either corrupt or so incompetent they made everything worse.”

Aziraphale winced. “Well, I won’t deny, he’s not the cleverest of the bunch… but he’s _obsessed_ with the Angels. He’s spent the better part of his career trying to bring Gabriel to justice for his crimes. The sergeant won’t waste a chance like this. It’s our best hope of making a clean getaway.”

Crowley still didn’t look convinced, but nodded. “You’ve got your papers, yeah?”

“Right here.” Aziraphale touched his breast pocket where he had stashed his brand new fake passport and ID, both quite impressive forgeries. In his other pocket was their Rome list and a fake marriage certificate, the latter of which still gave him happy flutters whenever he saw the names. Ezra Cortese & Antonio Harrison, a happy couple going abroad for their honeymoon with no plans to return anytime soon. When the time came, they would board a flight to the continent and from there they would obtain a car and drive, taking a meandering route all across Europe and sleeping in the backseat to shake off any pursuit. By the time they reached Rome, if luck was on their side, they should be free and clear. Safe, at last, to live as they pleased and never again answer to the likes of Gabriel and Beelzebub.

“Take this, too,” Crowley said. Aziraphale watched in amazement as he pulled yet _another_ burner phone from some pocket or other.

“My goodness, how many of those do you have?”

Crowley ginned and turned the mobile on for him. Aziraphale paid close attention to the brief tutorial on how to make a call and answer voicemail and find Crowley’s number in his contacts. He shouldn’t _need_ to call Crowley, but they had to plan for every contingency.

“Wait for my call,” Crowley told him. “Dunno how long it’ll take, might be a couple of days. Hopefully, no longer than a week. I’ll either meet you at the bookshop or at the airport, and then we’re gone on the first flight we can catch.”

Aziraphale nodded, clutching the mobile hard enough to hurt his hands. “And if something goes wrong? Or if I don’t hear from you at all?”

Crowley took a deep, shaky breath. Behind his sunglasses, he looked very pale and very scared. “If you don’t hear from me in a week,” he said, “then get on a plane and I’ll find you in Rome. Wherever you are, I’ll come to you.”

“Crowley…”

“No,” Crowley snapped, “we’re not having this argument again.”

“Oh, yes we are!” Aziraphale said, because they had both stayed up all night putting this plan together, arguing in circles over the details, and he was tired and stressed and refused to let Crowley get the last word in. “Crowley, you _can’t_ be there when the trap is sprung. It’s too dangerous. As soon as your people realize what’s going on, they’ll turn on you and have you killed!”

“And if I don’t show up at all,” Crowley said, “then Beelzebub will _know_ I’m up to something. They’re not stupid, they can put the pieces together. If the ambush gets called off, then all of this will be for nothing.”

Aziraphale gripped his forearm. “Then let me come with you. Tie my hands, let me play the part and assuage their suspicions. Then when the time comes, we can escape together—”

“Or die together.”

“You can’t expect me to just sit in my shop and wait for a call and _not_ think of all the horrible things that might be happening to you!”

“Oh, as opposed to the horrible things that might happen to you?” Crowley retorted. “If I bring you with me, you’ll be handed over to Hastur and Ligur. Remember them? Remember what they tried to do to me? And I was on their side! But you…” He swallowed. “They’ll _hurt_ you. Your Gabriel’s brother, they’ll pull out all the stops, work you over ‘til you’re half dead, and then how’m I supposed to get us out of there?”

Aziraphale fumed. He badly wanted to argue further, he wanted to tell Crowley that he didn’t _care_ about the pain or the torture, he didn’t fear anything Hastur and Ligur might do to him. They could shatter every bone in his body, break his mind and soul, and he would suffer it gladly to stay by Crowley’s side. They should be facing this hell together.

And yet… and yet… Crowley was _right_ , blast it. Even if everything went according to plan, it could still be days before Gabriel and Beelzebub came to terms. Days in which Crowley would be forced to keep a straight face in front of Beelzebub while knowing Aziraphale suffered behind closed doors. Crowley was incredibly clever and had a masterful pokerface, but even he might find that difficult. No, Aziraphale would be nothing more than a distraction, a liability. As much as he hated it, Crowley’s strategy granted them the best chance of survival. Had they had more time, they could have come up with a better plan, but Gabriel’s call had spurred them to immediate action. The wheels were in motion now, for better or worse.

“…it’s going to work,” Crowley said, like he was trying to be confident enough for the both of them. “I’ll keep my head down, slither away as soon as I get the chance. And if something goes wrong, I’ve got your insurance.”

He drew back his jacket just enough to show the pistol tucked into a holster at his hip. Aziraphale had given it to him weeks ago, but he was second-guessing that decision now. It frightened him to think of Crowley in a situation where he felt desperate enough to use it, but it would have frightened him even more to send him off unarmed.

He was so, so tired of being _frightened._

“If I don’t hear from you in a week,” Aziraphale said, “I’m coming to look for you.”

Crowley looked at him, mouth open like he meant to protest.

“And I’m sorry, but there’s _nothing_ you can do to change my mind. So don’t try.”

Crowley worked his jaw furiously. With a frustrated growl, he yanked off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Why are you _like_ this? Here I am trying to do one good thing for you, and you have to go and be a bastard about it…”

“Me, be a bastard? I’m not the one skipping off to quit my job and court Death in the most _flagrantly dramatic_ fashion possible.”

“Oh, oh! Flagrantly dramatic, is that what they call it these days? Excuse me for trying to save my best friend from being _tortured by my coworkers,_ oh no, we can’t have that, can we?”

Aziraphale sucked in a breath. _Best friend._ They had said it many times, expressed it in various ways, yet that simple endearment still had the power to render him speechless. Sometimes he wondered if it was too fast, if the stress of the situation was pushing them both to take too many risks, put too much faith in each other. Aziraphale, for his part, knew very well that he was being quite reckless with his heart. He loved Crowley, with a depth and ferocity that he had never known was possible. The love he had once felt for his family paled in comparison, and wasn’t that a terrifying concept? It would be the end of him, if anything happened to Crowley now. Aziraphale would never survive his death.

“Just…” His voice broke, and Aziraphale had to stop and gather himself. “Just make sure you’re on that plane with me. I won’t stand for anything less.”

Crowley didn’t answer at first, sunk into his own thoughts. But he reached over and took Aziraphale’s hand, lacing their fingers together, which was as good as a promise. “Can I drop you at the bookshop?”

Oh, the offer was tempting. This might well be the last time they ever saw each other, and a selfish part of Aziraphale yearned to drag it out. But he shook his head. “Better not. I’ll walk back."

He gave Crowley’s hand one last squeeze and stepped out of the car. He heard the engine start behind him as he walked away, hurriedly buttoning his coat when he felt a few raindrops in his hair. It was only for a few days, he told himself, a week at most. For now, he had to lay low. Gabriel and Beelzebub both believed he was abducted and might try to search for him of their own volition, the one to reclaim him and the other to gain the upper hand. Beelzebub knew London from top to bottom, and Gabriel had eyes and ears on all the routes coming and going, but the one place neither would think to look was the bookshop. Or so he hoped. It was just one of the many gambles they were taking.

A car door behind him slammed. “Wait! Aziraphale, wait!”

Crowley was out of the car, running toward him. Before Aziraphale could even begin to guess what was the matter, he found himself with an armful of Crowley, clinging to him and squeezing like a man-shaped boa constrictor.

“One for the road,” Crowley mumbled into the crook of his neck. Aziraphale felt a tremor run through him as he was, impossibly, squeezed tighter. “Just in case it all goes pear-shaped.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, hardly knowing what to say around the lump in his throat. “Oh, my dearest. My darling boy. It’s going to be alright.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, angel.” He pulled back to catch his eye. “Uh, meant to ask, does it bother you when I call you that? Angel? It just kind of came out that first time, and I didn’t know how to walk it back…”

Aziraphale laughed and cupped Crowley’s face in his hands. The poor dear looked so nervous, like he expected even now to be soundly reprimanded and sent on his way. “Of course not. It means something different, coming from you. It makes me feel… rather treasured. The sentiment is very appreciated.”

And _there_ it was, that adorable blush that couldn’t be hidden behind any pair of sunglasses. Aziraphale loved how it bloomed across his nose and cheeks, while Crowley stammered out something nonsensical and looked anywhere except directly at Aziraphale. “Shut up! You’re the one who got us _wedding rings,_ don’t talk to me about—”

Chuckling fondly, Aziraphale leaned in and kissed his cheek. Crowley went utterly silent and still, and for a moment, Aziraphale feared he’d made a terrible mistake. Crowley had kissed him a number of times, for the sake of keeping their cover, but Aziraphale had _never_ reciprocated. Certainly they had never talked about whether or not reciprocation would be welcome.

“Was that too much?” Aziraphale stammered. “I’m so sorry, I keep doing all of these things, pushing physical affection on you without _asking_ first. I don’t even know how you feel about kissing…”

But when he made to step back, Crowley kept a tight hold of his lapels. “Nrgh, no, ‘s good!” he said, very loudly. “Fine. Great! Big kissing fan, me. Cheeks, hands, foreheads, that’s all good. Not on the lips, though, if that’s alright?”

“Oh good, that works out nicely,” Aziraphale said with a shaky laugh. Rather more shaky than he’d planned. Now that Crowley was in his arms again, he was having a devil of a time forcing himself to let go. He buried his face in one bony shoulder and tried to memorize every little detail of this moment and suspend it in his memory. Just in case.

“We’re gonna get through this,” Crowley whispered against his temple. “Our side, remember?”

As they drew apart, a glimmer at his throat drew Aziraphale’s gaze to the chain with Crowley’s ring. It looked perfect there, nestled in the hollow of his throat, right beside his heart, and Aziraphale brushed his fingers to the warmed metal in awe. He nodded.

“Yes. Quite right. Our side.”

* * *

 _Present Day  
_ _Tadfield_

Going into the village was always a nerve-wracking experience… in part because it required him to drive. Aziraphale had been provided with both a car and a license as a part of his cover and had failed to inform his handlers that he didn't actually know what he was doing behind the wheel. He understood the general theory well enough, as far as steering and acceleration went, and he could only thank God there was very little traffic to contend with in this village. The only casualties so far was his own paint job where he kept clipping hedges and bumping curbs (and also that poor cat he nearly ran down in his driveway, but as the creature had been trespassing and had come away from the encounter unscathed, Aziraphale felt only a smidgeon of guilt over the affair).

"Bother," Aziraphale muttered when he pulled up to park and heard the telltale scraaape of metal. When he stepped out of the car and came around to the front, he winced at the sight of a new dent. “Dear me… that’s a terrible spot for a parking meter."

“Mr. Eastgate!”

Aziraphale startled and dropped his keys. _Bugger_. Despite his best efforts to keep to himself and come across as a very private man, no one in this village ever seemed to take the hint. And he hadn’t even begun his shopping yet this time! They were getting bolder by the day.

He bent to retrieve his keys just as he was approached by a young boy with a dog trotting at his heels. “Sorry, must be getting along! Very busy today…”

The little dog darted forward and snatched up his keys before Aziraphale could get to them. He watched in annoyance as the dog dutifully deposited the keys in the boy’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Adam. Adam Young. You met my mum a few weeks ago, when you’d just moved in. She came over with biscuits?”

“Ah.” Now that he mentioned it, Aziraphale vaguely recalled a woman knocking on his door while he had been in the middle of stress-cleaning. He couldn’t remember how the conversation had gone, or even what the woman’s name was, but the biscuits had been delicious. “Yes, of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Adam.”

“Yeah, you too.” Adam glanced back over his shoulder to where a group of three other children were loitering on the street corner, well out of hearing range but very obviously watching events unfold. Aziraphale wondered if he was about to be the object of a prank and braced himself accordingly.

“Thing is, um, I wanted to tell you something.”

“Yes?”

Adam took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “We know who you really are. Me’n my friends, I mean. We figured it out.”

A cloud passed across the sun. It was remarkably well-timed, the words and the sudden darkness both serving to chill him right down to the bone. His heart thrashed in alarm, hands shaking until he stilled them, and he gaped at this strange boy, unable to comprehend how he could _know_. Was Adam’s mother somehow connected to the Fallen or the Angels? Was this a warning or a threat of some kind, delivered by innocent hands? Aziraphale half expected the boy in front of him to grin demonically and tell him he only had three days to live.

“...that bookshop in London, right? The one that went up in flames? We saw it on the telly, and Pepper said she recognized you. You owned that shop, right?”

Aziraphale blinked, the cold terror slowly receding. “O… oh,” he said weakly and resisted the urge to sag against his car. Of course, the _bookshop._ The burning had been all over the media for days. His connections to the mob had not been revealed to the general public, likely for his own safety, which had left everyone speculating over whether it had been a hate crime or merely a terrible accident. Aziraphale hadn’t even considered that he might be recognized from an evening news report, but he supposed nothing was secret in this modern age.

“I’m really sorry about your shop,” Adam said. His attention drifted down to Aziraphale’s left hand, and he shuffled his feet. “Some people who live in Soho were talking about it on Twitter. They said… well, they said you had a boyfriend and somebody got angry about it...”

Aziraphale folded his right hand over his left and leveled a stern look. “It’s not something I’m comfortable discussing just yet,” he said, a bit sharply.

Adam nodded, seeming to remember himself. “Yeah, sorry, I’ll stop. And we won’t tell anyone who you are, if you don’t want us to. I just wanted to let you know. What happened at your shop… you don’t need to worry about that sort of thing happening in Tadfield. Everybody’s okay with it, with… I mean, Pepper over there, she's got two mums so she gets it. And my cousin Warlock brought his boyfriend around for Christmas, and it was all fine, nobody said anything about it. So you don’t have to worry about anyone here being mean or trying to hurt you again. Okay?”

“...I see.” Aziraphale had to take a moment to collect himself, the conversation having taken several dramatic turns he wasn’t expecting. “Thank you,” he added, which seemed the appropriate thing to say.

“And you can always tell _us_ if someone’s being mean,” Adam added with a sparkle of mischief. “We’ll throw eggs at them and chase them away!”

“Well, that is good to know,” Aziraphale said, more bemused than ever. “You’re a very kind young man, Adam.”

Adam beamed and started off to rejoin his friends across the street. “Have a good day, Mr. Eastgate.”

“And you as well.”

“Oh wait, one more thing!”

Aziraphale withheld his impatient huff only by sheer force of will. “Yes?”

“There was a man in town yesterday looking for you,” Adam said. “He wouldn’t say his name, but he kept asking everybody a bunch of questions, trying to find out where you lived…”

And just like that, the terror was back tenfold.

“...but we told him it was none of his business and to leave you alone.”

“What did this man look like?” Aziraphale asked. He struggled to keep his voice even, not wishing to alarm the boy.

Adam shrugged. “Couldn’t really get a good look. He was kind of short, though. Was wearing a hoodie with a duck on the front.”

Well, that was supremely unhelpful.

“Do you know him?” Adam asked. “Should we call the police or something?”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Aziraphale assured him with a practiced smile. “I’m sure it’s no one dangerous. One of those fancy lawyer types, I imagine. Wants to know if I intend to sue anyone over my shop burning down.”

Adam wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, he did seem kind of lawyer-ish.” With that, he jogged back to his friends. Aziraphale waved as the children meandered on their way, then climbed into his car and locked the doors, completely forgetting about the shopping. He sat there for a long moment, fingers gripped tight around the steering wheel.

He supposed he should have seen this coming. He had hoped Gabriel’s death and Beelzebub’s imprisonment would be enough to break down both organizations, scatter their followers to the winds, but clearly at least one had decided to seek him out and eliminate him, whether out of loyalty or a petty desire for vengeance. Aziraphale pondered over the likely suspects. It couldn’t be Sandalphon, he was dead. And Uriel was too wise to take such a risk, she would have fled the country by now. Ligur was dead, Dagon was imprisoned...

That left Hastur, still unaccounted for to this day. Aziraphale remembered him well. A vile, odious man and far too temperamental, and he had seemed to hold some manner of grudge toward Crowley. Yes, the more he thought it over, the more likely it seemed. Hastur would have every reason to hunt Aziraphale down and exact a little personal vengeance. A confrontation with him would be dangerous, painful, and certainly result in the death of one or both of them.

Aziraphale shuddered and started the car. No. He’d had his fill of death lately. He would _not_ sit idly by and let the likes of Hastur take his life. As soon as he returned to the cottage, Aziraphale would contact his handlers and inform them that his cover had been compromised. They had plans for this exact scenario, contingencies upon contingencies, they could be at his door within the hour if necessary, and off he would go to another town with another name.

It wouldn’t be like the bookshop. Aziraphale was prepared this time, he had forewarning. He would not let himself be in that situation ever again.

As he turned onto the road, his eyes were drawn down to his left hand. To the empty space between his pinkie and middle fingers. The wound had healed well, but the sight of the obviously missing finger still turned his stomach, for more reasons than one. Averting his gaze, Aziraphale switched on the radio and made every effort after that not to think at all on the drive back to the cottage.

* * *

 _One Month Ago  
_ _London_

The shop phone was ringing.

It was the first thing to cut through the fog of unconsciousness clinging to him. The next was the throbbing ache in his head and the sharper pain in his wrists and forearms where they were tightly bound to the arms of his office chair. Aziraphale blinked dully, studying the packing tape cutting into his skin, trying to make sense of it. Why was he taped to his chair? And why was his office chair now sitting in the exact middle of the bookshop instead of by his desk? Had Crowley played a prank on him?

Crowley.

The car. The phone calls. Gabriel. The plan.

_Crowley._

That had all been two days ago. As planned, he had returned directly to the bookshop. Came in through the back, shut the blinds and locked the doors, done everything in his power to make the shop seem empty. And then he had spent two days pacing and fretting while he waited for Crowley to call and tell him the deed was done.

But… but… now he was tied to a chair? Aziraphale couldn’t remember how that had happened. There was a gap in his memory, one he couldn’t seem to piece together. Someone must have done this to him, but who…?

The phone stopped ringing. He heard a rustle of paper nearby.

“‘Honeymoon in Rome’. Oh, that’s cute, innit? Number one, try the oysters. Number two, wear matching shirts. Number three…”

“Sandalphon?” Aziraphale croaked. Pain shot through his neck and spine as he laboriously lifted his head. Oh, he didn’t feel well. He must have been struck over the head. Repeatedly. Aziraphale was amazed he had woken up at all.

And there was Sandalphon, leaning on a table directly across from him, with his sleeves rolled up and a familiar slip of paper in his hand. There was dried blood on his clothes, quite a lot of it, but he didn’t seem injured.

“See the sights,” Sandalphon read aloud. “Go for a picnic. Make Crowley learn how to dance.”

Sandalphon looked up, lips twisting into a sneer. “ _This_ is what you sold us out for? A picnic and a dancing partner? Oysters? You know, I really thought about holding back for Gabriel’s sake, but bugger that. An eternity in hell is too good for the likes of you. _Traitor.”_

“I… I’m not,” Aziraphale stuttered, but the halfhearted lie died on his lips. There was no point in denying it now. The most damning evidence was already in Sandalphon’s hands. He let his head hang for a moment, despair settling in his gut like a stone. “Where is Crowley?” he asked, prepared to hear the very worst.

Sandalphon’s expression darkened. “I’d meant to ask _you_ that.”

 _Oh, thank God._ “I don’t know where he is,” Aziraphale said quickly. He looked around, but of course the shop was empty. Distantly, Aziraphale could hear rain falling outside, the bustling sounds of London in the afternoon, but no one out there would be coming to save him. Even if he shouted for help, it was doubtful anyone would hear him.

“Guess I’ll have to settle for you, then,” Sandalphon said. “Someone’s got to pay for what happened to Gabriel.”

Aziraphale stiffened. “What do you...?”

“He’s dead. Beelzebub killed him this morning. Put a bullet right through his skull.” Sandalphon began to rip up the Rome list, strip by strip, letting the pieces flutter down to the floor. “That ambush was all your doing, wasn’t it? You and that _snake,_ Crowley, you staged a fake kidnapping, set it all up so our sides would be too busy fighting each other to see what you’d done. I _warned_ Gabriel you couldn’t be trusted, but he wouldn’t hear a word against you. Even after I made him listen to what you had to say about him behind closed doors…”

“...the microphone,” Aziraphale said, understanding rushing to him all at once. “It was _you_ spying on us…”

“And even then, it wasn’t enough! You know, he believed right up to the end that you were innocent? A loyal brother corrupted and led astray. How does that make you feel, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale couldn’t think of a single word to say. Gabriel was dead. Gone forever. It didn’t seem possible, even after all of their careful plotting. He felt numb, conflicted… but mostly, he just felt _relief_. And maybe a perverse sense of righteous triumph. Was that an appropriate reaction to the death of a family member? Perhaps he _did_ need a therapist. Crowley would be thrilled to hear it.

Oh Lord, _Crowley._ If their plan had succeeded, then Crowley would be on his way back to the bookshop. He could show up at any moment and walk himself right into Sandalphon’s clutches. Aziraphale had to get free, had to _warn him..._

The mobile on his desk vibrated. And only one person had that number. Aziraphale blanched and struggled against his binds as Sandalphon casually strolled in that direction and fetched the mobile. Looking Aziraphale dead in the eye, he answered the call and put it on speaker.

“Angel!” Crowley’s harried voice through the speaker seemed unnecessarily loud in the bookshop, and it was accompanied by the frantic honking of a car horn. “ _Finally,_ I couldn’t get through earlier, the phone network was being all... never mind, not important! Listen, it all went wrong—”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said, but Sandalphon had muted their end of the call. He took visible pleasure in turning the screen so Aziraphale could see the icon.

“—need to get to the airport right now, don’t wait for me! The ambush worked, but Sandalphon got away, I don’t know where he is, but he might be coming after you. I don’t know if you’re still safe where you are. I’m trying to get there, but I’m stuck in traffic on the FUCKING M25, BLOODY GODDAMN _MOVE_ , YOU STUPID—!”

“No, Crowley, don’t tell him where you are!” Aziraphale cried in vain.

“—also, I dropped your gun, sorry about that. Turns out Ligur was onto me this whole time. I had to shoot him to get away, I think he's dead, and I’m kind of freaking out about it? I… Aziraphale, _are you there?!_ Say something!”

Sandalphon unmuted the call. “You know,” he drawled, “it’s a real shame you didn’t call ten minutes ago.”

“Crowley, _don’t come to the bookshop!”_ Aziraphale shouted. “You must stay away!”

“...Aziraphale?” Crowley whispered, and oh, it utterly _shattered_ him to hear Crowley sound like that. Like the world was ending and he was helpless to stop it.

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said, but Sandalphon had already hung up. He squeezed his eyes shut, a rush of tears spilling down his cheeks. That was it. The last time he would ever speak to Crowley. He knew better than to hope he would escape this bookshop alive… and Aziraphale supposed it was only fitting that he meet the same fate as so many of his victims. He had been where Sandalphon was now, countless times, extracting information from a terrified innocent before finally taking their life. He could only pray that Sandalphon ended it before Crowley took it upon himself to perform some daring rescue.

“You're a _disgrace,”_ Sandalphon spat. “Look at you, crying over some nobody, the _enemy_ … and not a single tear to spare for your own family? What ever happened to ‘blood is thicker than water’?”

Trembling, Aziraphale swallowed hard and did his best to straighten his spine. “‘The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’,” he murmured.

Sandalphon frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I don’t need to explain myself. Especially not to _you.”_ He faltered for only a moment before committing himself. “I must say, you’re taking this awfully personally. What was your relation to the family again? The unwanted stepchild from our mother’s second marriage, wasn’t it?”

“Shut up! I’ve been more of a brother to Gabriel than you've _ever…”_

Aziraphale laughed harshly, a little wild-eyed. “I doubt he felt the same. Believe me, I know him very well. Gabriel kept you close for all these years because he likes being surrounded by people who never say no to him. You were nothing more than a professional sycophant! That's where you would still be if I hadn’t left the fold. Aren’t you ever so _grateful_ to me for the promotion?”

He expected the punch, but that didn’t make it any less painful or shocking in its brutality. Aziraphale reeled from it, vision swimming, but Sandalphon gave him no chance to recover his bearings. His fists came down again and again with no finesse, no apparent care for where the blows fell. Aziraphale could only hunch forward to try and shield himself, ears ringing with every strike, blood and drool dribbling from his lips.

“If I had time, I would make this last,” Sandalphon said. The next hit almost tipped the chair over, and Aziraphale gasped when Sandalphon’s fingers wrenched at his hair to keep him upright. “But someone’s got to pick up the pieces of what Gabriel left behind. There’s a new head of the family now.”

Reaching down, Sandalphon took ahold of the ring on Aziraphale’s left hand, his grip so strong that Aziraphale half expected to have his finger broken. He bit back a frightened whimper. He had seen broken bones plenty of times in his line of work and privately considered it one of the pettier forms of torture. Completely unnecessary and over-the-top, there was no _reason_ for it. God knew _Aziraphale_ had never resorted to such base methods, not when a few stern words and vague threats would net the same result.

He was about to voice this very thought, driven by sheer spite to get the last word in. But as he turned his head, he glimpsed the knife in Sandalphon’s hand and immediately lost any semblance of composure.

“No. Wait, no, _no!”_

The knife came down, and Aziraphale screamed. He struggled, of course he did, he nearly dislocated his shoulder in an effort to pull his hand away, but it was futile. The knife sawed back and forth, cutting deeper and _deeper,_ and Sandalphon was deaf to his cries of “ _stop, for God’s sake, stop!_ ” Then the blade hit bone, and his vision whited out, stomach rolling over itself. Aziraphale moaned and leaned sideways to vomit all over the floor. For a very long while, he was only aware of the bile on his tongue and the hot gush of warm blood soaking his hand and thigh. His body and mind were disconnected, the one in agony while the other observed with detached fascination. Someone was speaking into his ear, but the words were garbled, unintelligible.

The voice moved away after a time, and he was left to stare blankly forward, head lolled on his shoulder. He thought he could see someone looking in the window at the front, the flash of red hair only just visible through a gap in the curtain. Crowley? No, Crowley was far away, somewhere else. He must have imagined it. 

He let his eyes slip shut, for minutes or hours he could not have said, but he was jolted back to awareness by the books being piled up around his feet. Aziraphale watched the pile grow without comprehension. His books should not be on the floor. Moreover, they should not be tossed like that so carelessly, their covers splayed open. He wanted to pick them up, but his hand was covered in blood, he would just make more of a mess.

Slowly, he dragged his head upright to see where they were coming from and located Sandalphon among the stacks, a book in one hand and a lighter in the other. With a flick of his fingers, the book was alight, pages curling and cracking as Sandalphon shoved it on a low shelf where it would quickly spread to all the rest.

Aziraphale moaned again, this time in dismay. “Not the _books_ ,” he whimpered. His own death, he could have come to terms with, but his collection had always been meant to outlive him. He’d been amassing books since his early childhood, and the shop had finally given him a chance to organize and display them, every volume right there at his fingertips, ready for perusal. And now Sandalphon was _burning_ them. Slowly, methodically, he went to each shelf and set fire to book after book, and the last he tossed carelessly in the pile at Aziraphale’s feet.

Aziraphale coughed as smoke billowed up in his face, a fresh surge of adrenaline leading him to tug weakly at his binds. The packing tape around his left arm had become slippery with blood, there was a feeble chance he might be able to slip it free. But it would take time, and the flames were devouring his books at a terrifying speed. Already the skin of his ankles and shins was beginning to prickle and sting from the heat, lack of oxygen making his head swim. He might have less than a minute before the fire reached him, and then...

“I’ll be sure Crowley gets his souvenir when I find him,” Sandalphon said. He was already on his way to the door, and not a backward glance for the man he had doomed. “He'll appreciate the gesture, I’m sure.”

“Don’t,” Aziraphale whispered without knowing how he meant to finish that sentence. _Don’t hurt Crowley. Don’t leave me here. Don’t let the door hit you in the bum on the way out._ Crowley would have been proud of him for that last one.

Sandalphon turned away and unlocked the door, pushing it open.

And was immediately walloped in the face by a tennis racquet. A racquet wielded by a red-haired woman wearing a turban and silver bangles on her wrists. 

Tracy.

“ _Get the bastard!”_

Half a dozen people rushed through the open door, shouting obscenities as they tackled Sandalphon and bore him to the floor. Sandalphon disappeared under a rain of blows from other makeshift weapons, as if these people had seized whatever was to hand and rushed over to join in the assault. Aziraphale was startled to realize that he recognized most of them. The chef and sous chef from his favorite sushi restaurant. A barista with a large serving tray, who had always saved him the scones he liked. His barber, a meek fellow who was now viciously swinging a hair dryer by its cord. Even the man from two doors down who had helped Aziraphale clean up after vandals the one time. All of his neighbors, whose names he could barely match to the faces half the time, and yet here they were rising to his defense. When he looked back on this later, Aziraphale would be touched, but for now he was in far too much pain to do more than stare through eyes streaming from the smoke.

Tracy kicked aside the books between her and Aziraphale, yelping the occasional “ouch!” whenever the flames scorched her. She reached Aziraphale at last and tugged at the tape around his arm. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Fell, I saw what he was doing through the window, but I had to run and get help first, I couldn’t do anything on my own—”

“The fire’s spreading!” his barber said. “Is there an extinguisher?”

“There’s no time, just get Mr. Fell!”

“I can’t get this tape off!” Tracy cried. She looked from Aziraphale to the flaming bookshelves nearest, her eyes gone huge and frightened in the flickering light. “Oh, never mind! We’ll just pick him up, chair and all! Everyone together now…”

And they did just that, surrounding him on all sides and hoisting him up. Aziraphale could barely see anything by that point, the smoke was so thick, but somehow the group made their stumbling way in the right direction and tumbled out onto the street. He gasped in the fresh air, somehow startled to see how normal everything looked outside. The rain still fell, just as it did most days in London, and soaked his clothes as he was borne across the street and set down on the pavement. Within seconds, his arms were freed from the chair and Tracy was kneeling in front of him and wrapping a handkerchief around his bleeding hand.

“Good Heavens, we need to get you to a hospital,” Tracy fretted. “Mr. Fell? No, don’t try to stand up…”

Too late. Though it wasn’t _standing_ so much as tipping forward and slipping down to his knees. Multiple hands gripped him to keep him steady as Aziraphale cradled his hand and stared at his missing finger. A horrible thought occurred to him, and he looked back at his bookshop. “My ring…”

“Oh,” Tracy said with deep sympathy, also looking to the shop. Thick, black smoke was billowing out from the front doors now, and the flames were very visible through the windows. People were already gathering with their mobile phones in hand, some recording the disaster while others called the fire department. Tracy rubbed his back gently. “I’m sorry, love. We’ll help you rebuild it, never you worry.”

“Are we all accounted for?” the barista said, looking around at the group. “We all got out?”

“I think so,” Tracy said, though she frowned. “What about that awful man who started this? Where’s he gone? If he managed to run off, I’ll…”

A scream came from the bookshop, a feeble shout of “ _help!_ ” ringing out once before the wind blew the front doors shut. Everyone looked at each other, aghast.

The chef from the sushi restaurant cleared his throat. “Shame we could not reach him. Terrible shame. It’s much too dangerous to go back inside now. Best let the firemen handle it.”

No one disagreed with that. And Aziraphale had little say at all. He closed his eyes and turned away from it all, let Tracy and his neighbors fuss over him. “Crowley,” he mumbled.

“What’s that, dearie?”

“Tell him I’m alright? When he comes?” That was all Aziraphale could manage. His throat was a searing, screaming mess from the smoke, and all he wanted in the world was to curl up on the pavement and sleep for a century. Crowley would understand, surely. Aziraphale was in no fit state to find him now, let alone run away to Rome. Crowley would have to go on without him, though he would hate it and curse Aziraphale’s name for it.

Unless… maybe… he would choose to stay? Lay low, keep himself safe, wait for Aziraphale to recover? Or was that too much to ask? He had never wanted Crowley to risk being killed or imprisoned for his sake, not that it had ever stopped him before. His Crowley, so passionate and loyal and filled with a boundless optimism he couldn’t begin to understand, that spark of goodness forever shining through...

 _Wherever you are, I’ll come to you_. Aziraphale would hold him to that.

* * *

 _Present Day  
_ _Tadfield_

By the time he reached the cottage, Aziraphale was a mess of nerves in desperate need of a strong cup of tea. But there was no time for tea. He was fairly certain he was being followed. For the past ten minutes, he kept noticing a nondescript green car making the same turns as him, always at a distance but never far behind. The car had kept on his tail even when he took the long way home, and as soon as Aziraphale pulled up to his cottage, the car parked itself just down the street. Not even being subtle about it. Almost like they _wanted_ to be noticed.

It was Hastur, then. No doubt about it. The sadistic man was deliberately taunting him, lurking in plain sight like that. Aziraphale tried to look as if he hadn’t noticed, moseying up to his front door, then dashing across the threshold and bolting it shut behind him. Then he rushed to check that every single window and the back door were also secured. It might not stop Hastur for long, but it made him feel marginally better. Hastur would probably wait until the cover of darkness before he attacked, which meant Aziraphale had time to call his handlers and have them send help.

“Nothing to worry about,” Aziraphale muttered to himself as he picked up the phone in the front hall. “Just one quick call, that’s all you need to do. Where… _where_ is that blasted number…?”

Someone knocked on the door. Aziraphale gasped and dropped the phone, leaving it to swing on its cord while he darted into the kitchen and flattened himself to the wall. His hands began to shake, and he clasped them together tightly and cursed his own foolishness. Of course Hastur wouldn’t care about waiting for night. Why would he? But if he expected Aziraphale to just blithely answer the door and walk into his waiting arms, he was far less clever than anyone should give him credit for.

Another knock, louder this time. Aziraphale dared to peer around the corner. The windows around the front door were frosted, so all he could make out was a looming figure in dark clothes. The shadow knelt down, and Aziraphale watched in growing anguish as the lock began to jiggle and slowly turn.

He looked at the phone across the hall. Then back at the door. And something in him hardened. Crowley had once taught him the phrase, _Not today, Satan,_ which felt very appropriate at this moment. Weak and diminished and in mourning he might be, but by God, he would not go down without a fight.

Whipping around, Aziraphale scanned his meager kitchen for a weapon. He owned several sharp knives, but the memory of Sandalphon had caused Aziraphale to take those knives and shove them into a tupperware, which was in turn hidden away on the highest shelf in the pantry. It would take precious minutes to retrieve one, and he could already hear the front door creaking open, light footsteps treading down the hallway. Lacking anything better, Aziraphale seized a large saucepan from the drying rack and raised it in both hands. He cowered just inside the kitchen doorway, breathing hard and fast, and tensed when Hastur finally came around the corner. He was wearing the duck hoodie Adam had mentioned, the hood drawn up over his face, but he reached up and began to lower it as he stepped into the kitchen.

Aziraphale attacked, swinging the saucepan directly into Hastur’s gut. Hastur doubled over, wheezing and clutching at his stomach, and Aziraphale followed up with a resounding _thwack_ to the back of his head. Hastur went down on his hands and knees, the hood slipping as a pair of sunglasses clattered to the floor.

_Sunglasses—?_

Aziraphale raised the pan again. Hastur flung his hand out, rolling over, dark hair all mussed from being under his hood.

_Dark hair—?_

Aziraphale dropped the pan. He couldn't breathe, the world around him tunneling to that face, _that face_ , which could not be here in the cottage because it was supposed to be at the bottom of a river, on a cold slab in a morgue, buried and gone and _dead_ , and yet…

“Crowley?” Aziraphale whispered. Then again when his mind still could not seem to grasp what his eyes were seeing. “ _Crowley?”_

Crowley groaned, flopping and flailing around like he couldn't find his balance even when he was laid out flat on the floor. It seemed to take him a moment to uncross his eyes and look up at Aziraphale standing over him.

“Hi,” Crowley said in a daze. And then his eyes rolled and fell unconscious.

* * *

 _One Month Ago  
_ _London_

A knock came at the door of his hospital room. His morning nurse, Anathema, poked her head in with an apologetic smile. “Mr. Fell? I know you’ve just woken up, but that police sergeant is back with more questions about your shop.”

Aziraphale sighed and nudged aside his sad little breakfast of yogurt and cold cereal and an apple that he had taken only two bites out of before setting aside. “Oh, if I must. Thank you, my dear, you can send him in.”

Anathema opened the door wider to admit a very grumpy-looking Sergeant Shadwell. “Just put on your call light if you need anything,” she said with a meaningful glare. “ _Anything_ at all. Newt and I will both be just outside passing meds.”

“Alright, away with you,” Shadwell grumbled at the nurse, who shot him a most unimpressed look. Aziraphale had gone out of his way to be scrupulously polite to the nurses from day one, and as a result they were all now very protective of “that charming Mr. Fell in room 4004”. Anathema in particular was Not Pleased with this police sergeant who wouldn’t stop badgering him about his horrifying ordeal.

“Sergeant Shadwell!” Aziraphale said, smiling brightly when it was just the two of them. “Good morning. Would you care for some yogurt?”

“Eh, what?”

“The yogurt. I’m not fond of raspberry. But if I don’t eat it all, they’ll force me to drink a protein shake later, and those taste _much_ worse. You’d be doing me a great favor.”

“No, I don’t want your blasted yogurt,” Shadwell grunted. But he glanced warily at the open door and adopted a more civil tone. “How's the hand?”

“Still missing a finger, last I checked,” Aziraphake said, perhaps more cheerfully than the situation warranted. He blamed the pain medication for making him loopy. Or perhaps it was denial. Sandalphon’s attack and the burning of his shop, those events still felt a bit hazy, the details muddled. Like he had dreamed the whole thing and could at any moment wake up to find nothing at all had changed.

The only thing that still felt tangible was his concern for Crowley. Aziraphale vividly recalled hearing his voice on that cell phone, something about Ligur being dead and traffic on the M25, but the details had slipped his mind in the past few days. And Aziraphale couldn’t stop his imagination from conjuring up more and more gruesome scenarios that ruined his sleep and caused his nurses to make anxious noises about his blood pressure. Those worries would not be assuaged until he could find Crowley again, but Aziraphale had no way of doing that now, stuck here in the hospital with his burner phone melted into a pile of goop. All he could do was wait, much as he despised it. Recover from his wounds and his concussion, avoid being imprisoned for the foreseeable future, and then he could turn all of his energies to finding Crowley.

And to that end, he had a police sergeant to pacify. Aziraphale set down his spoon and schooled his expression into one of polite interest. “How can I help you, Sergeant? I had thought we’d finished with all of this unpleasantness?”

“Oh no, no, don’t you act all innocent!” Shadwell said, wagging his finger. “I _know_ you’ve got something to do with this mess. Every single person I took into custody implicated you in the death of Gabriel Arch. Said you and some bloke named Crowley arranged it all and set them up to take the blame!”

Aziraphale sighed. “Oh dear, criminals will say just about anything to get out of punishment, won’t they?” he lamented and watched Shadwell’s face slowly turn purple. “The very thought of it! Me, a mobster! I’m a simple bookseller. Not a single parking ticket to my name. But I’m sure my customers and neighbors have already vouched for me in that regard.”

“Aye, that’s true enough,” Shadwell admitted. “But the man who attacked you and burned down your shop, he worked with Gabriel…”

“I’ve never met that man before,” Aziraphale lied smoothly. “I have no idea why he singled me out and attacked me personally. Rather rude of him.”

“But your brother! You had to have known about his unlawful dealings…?”

“And I’ve told you several times now,” Aziraphale said, “I was estranged from my family. I’ve no idea how Gabriel became involved with such terrible people. If I was a better brother, maybe I could have helped him see the light, but I suppose it’s too late to make amends now.”

Shadwell gaped at him, righteous fury warring with whatever black-and-white morals he clung to in his heart of hearts. He was a surprisingly decent fellow, this sergeant, more so than others of his ilk, which was the reason Aziraphale had chosen him in the first place. A few anonymous tip offs had been enough to set him on the trail like a bloodhound, but his own nature wouldn’t let him arrest Aziraphale without solid evidence of his involvement. A mere handful of eye witnesses would never be enough in a court of law, and they both knew it.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Sergeant?” Aziraphale asked. “Otherwise, I really must be getting back to my breakfast.”

“One thing!” Shadwell burst out. He fumbled with his coat and yanked a large manila envelope from its folds. “One new thing came up. Just last night, in fact!”

“Oh?” Aziraphale favored him with an indulgent smile. “And what might this ‘one thing’ be?”

“It’s about this slippery character named Crowley,” Shadwell said, and Aziraphale couldn't quite suppress his flinch. “Short hair, good cheekbones, wears sunglasses, that sound about right?”

“I… I wouldn’t know…”

“I think you would, though. It’s the same exact description your neighbors provided for your ‘boyfriend’, Anthony! What do you have to say about _that?”_

“My, that is a coincidence,” Aziraphale said dryly. “Short hair and good cheekbones. I wonder how many Londoners fit that exact description?”

“Uh huh, and just where _is_ this mysterious boyfriend of yours, then? Not at your bedside like any decent fellow ought to be?”

“Hospitals make him squeamish.”

“Or maybe,” Shadwell said with a dramatic finger-point, “he's not here because he and Crowley were one and the same! Just _maybe_ he wasn’t your romantic partner at all! A cohort, he was! A fellow conspirator! Maybe even the mastermind! The two of you—”

“ _Was?”_

The sergeant floundered and looked for a moment like he intended to bluster on regardless of the interruption.

“What do you mean… _was?_ ” Aziraphale said sharply. “Past tense. Why did you word it like that?”

Shadwell opened his mouth, but said nothing. He watched Aziraphale for a long moment and must have seen something in his eyes, in his expression, that made the sergeant balk and deflate like a punctured balloon. “Er…”

Aziraphale’s attention fell back to the envelope. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze away from it now, a cold, prickling dread beginning to crawl up his spine and clutch around his heart. He had never been one to believe in premonitions and prophecies and the like, yet he had no other word for this chilling certainty. Suddenly, he _knew_. Aziraphale knew beyond a doubt what that envelope contained, and he was powerless to stop it from being revealed.

“...a car was found sunk in the Thames,” Shadwell said, slowly, no longer attempting to grandstand. Rather, he broke the news like Aziraphale was a grieving spouse searching for closure. “There was a body inside. Had been there for a few days at least, and some items were found at the scene that, erm…”

He reached into the envelope and drew out the photos one by one, laying them across the little table beside Aziraphale’s yogurt. They were very stark, the objects in them depicted against a solid gray background. Shadwell seemed most focused on the pistol, which had been proven as the weapon which killed Ligur, but Aziraphale could have told him that. He would have known that pistol anywhere. Just as he also knew the cracked sunglasses. And the mobile phone. And the waterlogged copy of Hamlet. And the wedding ring strung on a thin golden chain.

“There’s a photo of the corpse too, but eh…” Shadwell hastily slipped the last photo back into the envelope without showing it. “Might be a touch upsetting. Let’s just start with these. Care to tell me what you know of these items, Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale hardly heard him and couldn’t have answered even if he wished. He reached out with numb fingers and touched the image of Crowley’s ring. “They killed him,” he whispered.

“So… so you _did_ know him after all!” Shadwell said in a weak attempt to assert control. “I knew it, I knew there was more to you than meets the eye! You’ve all but admitted your guilt! You… er, you alright, Mr. Fell? Only you’re starting to breathe a little funny…”

That was an understatement. Aziraphale was hardly breathing at all. Every gasp in was a torment, the last sliver of hope stolen away, and now there seemed to be an invisible vice around his lungs. Like he was back in the burning shop and slowly suffocating from the smoke with clean air only a few steps away. He clutched the photo of the wedding ring to his chest, wracked with silent sobs, unable to get enough air to even cry properly.

Shadwell backed up and yanked open the door. “Nurse? Doctor? Somebody! I think he's having a heart attack!”

“They… killed… him,” Aziraphale gasped out as multiple nurses rushed in and surrounded him, trying to coax him to lie back, but they didn’t understand, this wasn’t anything their medicine could fix. This was something that had reached deep inside and ripped away his very soul, taken away his one reason for living, and without that, what did he have? He wanted to scream with the pain of it, and so he did, burying his face in his hands as hysteria made his voice climb higher.

“They killed him, they _killed_ him! Those monsters, those demons… _they’ve killed my Crowley!”_

* * *

 _Present Day  
_ _Tadfield_

“Don’t be dead, oh _please_ don’t be dead,” Aziraphale said over and over. Crowley was a limp weight in his arms, head lolling back. Still breathing, but so frighteningly still. It reminded Aziraphale too much of the night he had stumbled into the bookshop with a stab wound and passed out cold in a pool of blood. His Crowley was never meant to be so lifeless. He had a way of taking up space when he was awake and most at ease, sprawling out across the nearest flat surface and gesticulating with every other word, brash and loud in the best way possible.

But now, when Aziraphale laid him out on the couch in the living room, he took up almost no space at all, the cushions seeming to swallow him whole. Aziraphale tenderly tucked a pillow behind his head, then dashed into the kitchen for a cold compress and cursed himself for not having painkillers ready to hand. His bookshop had been stocked at all times with at least three different first aid kits, and it hadn’t occurred to him yet to prepare one for the cottage. He had been too busy with cleaning the place up, too distracted and lost in his own mourning to bother with it.

Returning to the living room and sinking to his knees beside the couch, Aziraphale had to take a moment to catch his breath and just look at him. Crowley, his beloved Crowley. Warm and alive beneath his hands, flinching at the first touch of the compress, mumbling a nonsensical complaint at how cold it was. His clothes were not his own. Aziraphale had never in his life seen Crowley wearing a hoodie, and his favorite boots appeared to have suffered some water damage when normally Crowley kept them in tip-top condition. Aziraphale touched his hair, tentatively combed his fingers through and found no trace of his usual hair product. It looked like he hadn’t showered in days or put any thought into his appearance, and that was most unlike him.

“What’s happened to you?” Aziraphale murmured. His hand hovered over the vision on his couch, suddenly afraid to touch and see it vanish despite having held it in his arms only a moment ago. But how well could he really trust his own mind after all he had been through?

 _Maybe you’ve finally cracked, isn’t that possible?_ an insidious part of him whispered, with a voice that sounded too much like Gabriel. _Maybe you’re still dreaming and just haven’t woken up yet. Poor Zizi, always lost in his books, he’s never been able to handle the real world..._

“Hhrgnnn,” Crowley groaned, one hand clumsily groping up and clinging to the compress on his head.

“My dear?” Aziraphale said, breathless with fear. It had taken him days to recover from his own concussion, and the doctors had stressed that head injuries had a way of seeming harmless at first while potentially causing permanent damage under the surface. Aziraphale ought to be rushing Crowley to the nearest hospital, but he had no idea how to explain this. What could he say? That Crowley was his best friend and fake-husband who had once been a part of the mob, had been declared dead weeks ago and just now turned up alive on his doorstep, whereupon Aziraphale had promptly whacked him over the head and tried to kill him again?

“Please say something,” Aziraphale said. “Even if it’s only to tell me off. I need…” He drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if this is real yet. I need to know, Crowley. Are you really here?”

Crowley slitted his eyes open and smirked. Just a tiny one, but it was there all the same. “Y’know,” he drawled, “I was kind of hoping for a warmer welcome. I am shocked, just _devastated_ that you’d betray me like this. Never saw it coming. Plot twist of the century.”

“Oh, you, _you,_ ” Aziraphale said, helpless affection swelling up in his chest until he thought he might burst with it. He pounded his fist down on Crowley’s chest in a mockery of a punch, but he couldn’t even pretend to be upset with him for the month-long absence, for sauntering back into his life like nothing had changed, for daring to be _alive_ when Aziraphale had thought him gone...

“What’d you hit me with anyway?” Crowley asked. He probed at the back of his head and winced as he pressed the compress there instead. “Felt like a…”

“A saucepan.”

“I was going to say a sledgehammer, but the saucepan sounds more like you.” He chuckled. “I remember you tried to hit me with a book that one time. You’ll just grab any old thing and use it as a bludgeoning weapon, won’t you?”

“I thought you were _dead .”_

“That’s my line,” Crowley grumbled. Two second later, he seemed to register what Aziraphale had said and snapped his eyes wide open. “You what? How did you think _I_ was dead?”

Aziraphale sputtered, because _really_ , he couldn’t see how that was even a question. “There was a body found in the river inside a car! Your ring was in the car, and so was my gun…”

“That was Hastur! His body, not mine. How'd you make that mistake? I don’t look anything like him!”

“Well, no one ever showed me the corpse!” Aziraphale said petulantly and only realized in retrospect that he really should have demanded to identify the body himself. Blast that incompetent Shadwell! “And… and that aside, you were nowhere to be found, what other conclusion was I meant to draw? Where _were_ you?”

“In Soho,” Crowley snapped, “having a breakdown behind a dumpster because I thought Sandalphon burned you alive! Look, I got there and your shop was all a wreck, everything gone up in flames, and the paramedics were hauling out a _body_ _bag_ , what else was I supposed to think?”

Aziraphale took a very deep breath. “So we both made a false assumption based on what little evidence we had at the time and neither of us bothered to look into it any further.”

Crowley sunk down a little and crossed his arms. “Seems like.”

“...is it possible we’re both _that_ stupid?”

Crowley flushed. “Speak for yourself. At least I figured it out after a couple of days. You...”

He trailed off in sudden, horrified understanding, watching Aziraphale’s face crumple. “You didn’t know. All this time? Not until I walked in?”

Aziraphale shook his head, worried that if he spoke a single word he would split apart at the seams and never pull himself together again. Crowley didn’t need to see that. He would take it completely the wrong way and assume it was all his fault, and that was the last thing Aziraphale wanted.

Crowley didn’t rise, probably because his head was still hurting. But he opened his arms. Tentatively, hesitantly, as if to ask first whether or not this was still welcome. And what could Aziraphale do but fling his arms around him and hold him tight? Bury his face in his chest, press an ear to his heartbeat, and valiantly pretend he wasn’t trembling like a leaf and making a mess of the ridiculous duck hoodie. He breathed in, taking in the scent of cheap detergent and of Crowley underneath it. He hadn’t even realized he knew what Crowley smelled like.

“M’sorry,” Crowley said, and the waver in his voice only made Aziraphale tremble even more. “I tried to get to you, I _did_. But it was like everything was against us that day. And… _God_ , I was a mess without you, Aziraphale. You have no idea, I didn’t know what to _do_ with myself, I just kept coming back to the bookshop like I expected it to fix itself up overnight. But every time it was just a reminder you weren’t there anymore and I couldn’t save you…”

“I did ask Tracy to tell you what happened,” Aziraphale said thickly. He felt it very important for Crowley to know he had made that effort.

“Right, Seance Lady, she caught me lurking one night. Lured me inside with tea and biscuits, then she dropped a bomb on my head when she told me you were still alive. By the time I worked out the right hospital, you'd already been discharged, and nobody could tell me where you’d gone. Since there was nothing in the news about you being arrested, I figured witness protection was the best bet.”

Aziraphale raised his head, certain that his face was splotchy and just as certain he didn’t care. “But how did you find me?” he asked with not a little awe. “I could have been anywhere!”

Crowley snorted. “That was the easy part. Made a few social media accounts, joined a bunch of forums and followed the gossip. Some bloke named R.P. Tyler had a whole thread complaining about his new neighbor who is—and I quote—‘a terrible gardener, doesn’t know his dandelions from his daisies, seems like a bit of a bastard.’”

“And from _that,_ you realized it was me?”

“Be honest. Do you know the difference between a dandelion and a daisy?”

Aziraphale struggled for a moment. “...one of them is yellow?” he hazarded.

“That’s my angel,” Crowley murmured, gazing upon him so fondly that it threatened to bring him to tears all over again. Aziraphale sniffed and wiped his eyes, then jumped when Crowley let out a very loud and unnecessarily dramatic gasp.

“What?”

Scooting upright, Crowley reached out and cradled his left hand like it was made of glass. Without his sunglasses, there was nothing to hide his reaction to the missing finger.

“Oh. That.” Aziraphale swallowed, struck by the urge to jerk his hand away and brusquely change the subject.

“Tracy said you’d hurt your hand,” Crowley said, stricken. He looked up like he was begging Aziraphale to explain the joke, tell him it wasn’t what he thought. “Sounded kind of weird when she mentioned it. I thought… the fire or maybe a shelf fell on you…”

“No, I’m afraid it was quite deliberate on his part,” Aziraphale said quietly. And all he could feel was shame that he had let his guard down, let Sandalphon to get that close. Now that the initial trauma was in the past, he could look back and think of numerous ways he might have fought back, or at least made himself more of a nuisance. He could have vomited _on_ Sandalphon, for one. And his feet hadn’t been restrained, he could have done a lot more kicking, maybe that would have stalled things long enough for his neighbors to reach him before any books were burned or fingers severed.

Crowley made a pained noise, and Aziraphale took that as a sign to gently pull his hand away and steer his attention elsewhere. “Come now, it’s not so bad. I got off lightly, I would say.”

“ _Lightly?_ ” Crowley sputtered. “If anyone got off lightly, it was me. Look at me! Not a scratch to my name, not even after taking a swan dive into the river with—”

He cut himself off, but the damage was done. Aziraphale grasped his hands, heart thumping hard as he studied Crowley’s shifty movements and averted eyes. “ _Into_ the river?”

Crowley squirmed. “I didn’t mean to tell you that part.”

Aziraphale leapt to his feet. “You were _in the car!_ ” he cried. “You were inside that car when it went into the Thames?”

“Well, technically,” Crowley hedged, “I was kind of… sort of… driving it?”

“Lord Almighty…”

“Look, I didn’t have a choice! Hastur was about to blow my brains out!”

“That does _not_ make it better!” Aziraphale raked his hands through his hair and let Crowley coax him into sitting down on the couch. “Crowley, what happened that day?”

Crowley cringed back a little and shifted so he was seated upright, hunching in on himself. “Not really much to tell. You sure you want the details?”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, trying to be gentle about it, “I’ve spent the past month believing you were gone from this world. I’ve done nothing but envision all the worst case scenarios involving you and that thrice-damned river. Believe me, I would rather know the truth than suffer in ignorance.”

Crowley still hesitated, but soon relented with a faint sigh. “Alright. So it went like this. After Sandalphon hung up on me…”

* * *

 _One Month Ago  
_ _London_

“No, no, no, no, pick up, _pick up, you bastard!_ ” Crowley snarled, but every call went straight to voicemail. Sandalphon, that sadistic bastard, he must have shut Aziraphale’s phone off. Crowley flung his own mobile into the passenger seat and screamed into his hands. Outside the car, rain kept pounding on the roof, the traffic crept along in increments, and miles away in Soho his best friend was about to be murdered in his own bookshop, and Crowley couldn’t do anything about it.

Well, maybe there was one thing he could do. Crowley snatched up his mobile and called back. “Look, I’m the one who came up with the plan, not him!” he said when a beep indicated he had gotten voicemail again. “I set up the fake kidnapping and the ambush, I convinced Beelzebub to kill your boss, it was all me! I had it out for Gabriel from the start, I talked Aziraphale into it! So if you want someone to take it out on, then just… just leave him and take me instead! I’ll make it easy, I’ll drive right up and surrender myself, just don’t… don’t _hurt_ him, just leave him…”

That was as far as he got before voicemail cut him off. Crowley cursed a blue streak and tossed it into the backseat, looking around wildly. He had to get out of this traffic. There was no chance in hell he would reach the bookshop in time, but he would be damned if he didn’t try. Maybe Sandalphon would take his time, really draw it out, maybe Aziraphale would still be alive by the time Crowley got there...

He took off his sunglasses and muffled another sob in his hands. _Angel, oh angel, this is all my fault. I never should have walked into that bookshop. He was just trying to keep his head down, live a normal life, ‘til I showed up and wrecked it all, why couldn’t I just leave him alone? He’d be better off if we’d never known each other..._

His passenger door opened right in the middle of his wallowing. Crowley looked over, ready to snap that this was _not a bloody Lyft, get the fuck out_. But then he saw the gun being aimed at his head—Aziraphale’s gun—and his last shred of hope deserted him.

“Shit weather today,” Hastur grunted as he slid into the car. The faint sneer was just for show though. Crowley honestly hadn’t thought Hastur could get more unhinged, but that was before Ligur had hit the ground with a bullet in his chest. Hastur had still been screaming as Crowley fled the scene, and now… now he looked at Crowley like he wasn’t even going to enjoy killing him. Like he was an underperforming houseplant about to be tossed out with the rest of the compost. It was downright _chilling._

“Hands on the wheel where I can see them.”

Crowley complied. “Hastur,” he said, and it came out a lot more cool and casual than he felt. Inside, he was a shrieking, blubbering mess of panic and premature grief. “You’ll get a ticket if you leave your car there.”

Hastur didn’t spare a glance for the vehicle he had abandoned two cars back in the other lane. Without a word, he seized Crowley by the hair and smashed his face into the steering wheel.

“ _Ow!_ Was that necessary?”

“You killed Ligur.”

“...yeah okay, that’s fair.”

Hastur went for his neck, and for a split second Crowley thought he was about to be strangled then and there. But Hastur’s hand closed around his ring, and he yanked until the chain broke, gleefully dangling it in front of Crowley’s face while all he could do was sit there and seethe. “So where’s the little brother, then? Hiding in a nice little safe spot while you do all the dirty work?"

Crowley didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Aziraphale might be dying right at this moment, and from the looks of things, Crowley wouldn’t be far behind him. If this had been a movie, he would expect to be saved by a plot-convenient miracle right around the corner, but real life had a way of fucking him over in ways no director could never imagine.

“How the mighty have fallen,” Hastur turned the ring over, examining it from every angle. “Never thought I’d see the day, but look at you, he’s got you wrapped around his finger. You’ve turned on your own, betrayed us all, you’ve _killed_ for him. And for what? You know he’s using you, right?”

“Shut it,” Crowley hissed, clinging to the steering wheel in a death grip so he wasn’t tempted to punch Hastur in the face.

“Aw, does the truth hurt?” Hastur taunted. “He saw his chance to get rid of Gabriel, take the power for himself, and he _took_ it. You were a useful tool, but he always planned to dispose of you in the end. I’m amazed you fell for it. You ought to know better than anyone. I mean, conning people is your _specialty.”_

“...you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Crowley said hotly. “You don’t know anything about him!”

“Don’t need to. His type, they’re all the same."

Crowley shook his head because _that_ was just plain ridiculous. Aziraphale was a lot of things, but conniving and manipulative weren’t even options on the board. He was kind and _good,_ the first real friend Crowley had had in years, he had risked his _life_ to protect Crowley.

 _And he also got you involved with Gabriel, did you forget that part?_ a sinister voice whispered. _Oh sure, he pretended to feel bad about it later, but by then you were already promising him the moon and stars and his brother’s head on a platter. He didn’t even have to_ ask _you, that’s just how pathetic and blindingly naive you are, jumping to please him at every opportunity..._

Hastur laughed in the silence. Laughed and kept laughing like it was funniest the joke of the century. And that, more than anything, made the barest sliver of doubt creep in. It was never far, that Doubt. Always lingering in the back of his mind, always reminding him that he could never _really_ trust another person. _Especially_ the nice ones, they were the ones with something to hide. Crowley thought back to the phone call only minutes ago and felt like someone had carved out his heart and replaced it with a block of ice. What if it had been a trick? Was Sandalphon in on it? Were the two of them laughing at him even now, celebrating their usurping of Gabriel?

No, no, Aziraphale wasn’t _that_ good of an actor. Crowley was an accomplished liar in his own right, he would have _known_ if Aziraphale was playing him…

...wouldn’t he?

Another car honked behind them. At Hastur’s motion, Crowley inched the car forward and pulled off the M25. Conscious of the gun, he kept his head facing forward while his eyes darted around in search of a way out. But no brilliant plans were coming to mind. If he tried to get out of the car and run, Hastur would shoot him. If he tried to drive anywhere except where he was told, Hastur would shoot him.

_Does it even matter now? Even if you do survive and get all the way to the bookshop, what do you expect to find there? Aziraphale could be waiting with his new lackey, ready to tie off the last loose end..._

“So what’s it to be?” Crowley said, if only to drown out the chaotic spiral of his own thoughts. “Bullet to the head, quick and clean?”

“See that carpark up there?” Hastur said and helpfully pointed out said carpark. Crowley could see the appeal at once. It was right on the edge of the river, deserted and semi-isolated, though the busy roads and the weather would easily drown out any loud gunshots. Or screams. Just the sort of place where one could commit murder in broad daylight and be unlikely to have witnesses. “Pull in there and park the car.”

“I see how it is,” Crowley muttered. Thinking fast, not giving himself a chance to second guess, he put his foot down hard.

Hastur yelped when the car lunged forward and peeled into the carpark at a frankly unreasonable speed. “What… what are you doing? Slow down!”

“Hey Hastur, quick question!” Crowley said to cover up the sound of him engaging the child locks. Bless modern cars for installing that feature. “Are you still afraid of drowning?”

“Am I...?” Hastur said, then balked when the words seemed to register. He frantically yanked at the door handle and shrieked. “Wait, wait stop this thing! You wouldn’t dare!”

Crowley gave a mirthless laugh. “If you’ve gotta go, then _go with style!”_

He floored it. Just before the car hit the flimsy railing at the edge of the carpark, he grabbed Hastur’s wrist and aimed the gun at the driver side window. Predictably, Hastur squeezed the trigger and the shot went off, which left Crowley with a shattered window and two ringing ears. A moment later the car went through the railing, the impact jolting its passengers as they hopped the curb and sailed into the river with a mighty _splash._

There was a bizarre moment when nothing seemed to happen. The car rocked in the water and drifted along with the current, showing no signs of sinking, and Crowley feared he had wasted all that drama on a shallow part of the river.

Then the water began to rush in through Crowley’s window. A _lot_ of water. Filthy and shockingly cold, it flooded the car in a matter of seconds and sent Hastur scrambling in the opposite direction, shrieking and pounding his fist on the passenger door.

“Shit!” Crowley gasped and sucked in a deep breath just before they were submerged completely.

* * *

 _Present Day  
_ _Tadfield_

“Oh, Crowley…”

Crowley wouldn’t look him in the eye, instead glaring around at the rest of the furniture. His description of what had occurred in the car had been brief and halting, straight to the point, saying nothing of the terror he must have felt in the moment. But it was there in his eyes, in the lightest tremble of his shoulders.

“...wasn’t actually trying to kill him,” Crowley said at last. “Figured he’d swim out the window right after me. He _can_ swim, even if he’s afraid of water, I was just trying to throw him off, get a head start… only he never came up.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Aziraphale said gently. “You were in fear for your life.”

“I didn’t mean to kill Ligur either!” Crowley blurted out. “But he’d figured out something was off, caught me sneaking away right after the ambush, and I kept telling him to _move,_ I thought maybe if I fired off a warning shot… but then it _hit_ him and… and that was it, he was gone.”

His words were starting to run together, edging up into hysteria, as if punishment was imminent and he needed to explain and justify himself. To _Aziraphale,_ of all people, who had committed far worse acts for far less reason. Aziraphale scooted closer and enfolded Crowley in his arms, finding no resistance as Crowley crumpled against him. He was _shaking_ , the poor thing, grasping at him, fingers digging into his jumper, and Aziraphale stroked his shoulders and back.

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale murmured. “You never should have been in that position. I put you in such peril, and I had no right to ask it of you.”

“Didn’t ask me,” Crowley said, voice half muffled by his hood. “I did it all myself. I wanted to save you. Us, save us both. Make it so we wouldn’t have to answer to them ever again.”

“And I will spend the rest of my life _thanking_ you for that.” Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s chin and coaxed him to look up. “Just look, look at where we are now. Alive and safe and beyond their reach forever! As far as everyone else is concerned, you died in the river and I’m tucked away in a bunker in Megiddo.”

“Where’s that?”

“Er. Israel, I think? They grow avocados there.”

Crowley chuckled, and couldn’t seem to stop once he’d started, hiccupping a little as he wiped his eyes.

“Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten an avocado,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully. “I should try one.”

“Yes, definitely,” Crowley said in a way that suggested he found the mental image enormously funny for some reason. “If we still had our list, I’d add that for sure.”

“Oh, the Rome list!” Aziraphale cried. “Crowley, I’m so very sorry, but it’s gone, it went up in flames with everything else…”

But Crowley was already shaking his head. “Hey, no, don’t worry about that. Doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not like you can leave the country now. The Powers-That-Be would snatch you up before you ever got close to a plane.”

Aziraphale mulled this over and had to concede with a pout. “I could leave if I really wanted. We might have to spend a little more time on the run, but…”

“Oh, you wouldn’t like being on the run,” Crowley said with a grimace. “It’s really not as great as everyone makes it seem. I tell you now, I’ve only been at it a month, and I’d sell my soul for a shower and a full meal.”

“You poor dear,” Aziraphale said, taking pity on his woebegone expression. “Would you like to go clean yourself up, change into fresh clothes? I can make us toasties for lunch.”

“You are an angel and a saint and too good for this world,” Crowley said fervently, perhaps laying it on a bit thick, but Aziraphale had always found these dramatics to be one of his more charming aspects. “Please tell me you have alcohol, too?”

“Just tea and water, I’m afraid. Oh, and coffee if you can get that infernal machine to work.”

“Whaaat, are you serious? What’ve you been _doing_ for a whole month?”

“Well, recovering from a dire injury, to start with. But after that…” Aziraphale hesitated and looked away. “I’ve never particularly enjoyed drinking alone.”

It seemed to take Crowley a moment. “Oh. Right.” He shuffled awkwardly and nudged Aziraphale’s arm. “Missed me that much, did you?” he teased.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. He saw no reason to deny it. “Very much so.”

It was delightful to see that some things never changed. Such as all the shades of red Crowley could turn when he was flustered. He leapt to his feet. “Drink! I need a drink! Tea will do me fine. Do you reckon tea leaves can become alcoholic if we ferment them enough?”

“Crowley, that is _not_ how fermentation works…”

* * *

They did end up drinking wine in the end, after Aziraphale discovered a forgotten bottle in the cupboard. Some neighbor or other had given it to him as a housewarming gift (a coincidence he was tempted to label as _ineffable)._ After scarfing down an entire plate full of toasties, they passed the bottle between them on the couch, sprawled side by side while the television played a rerun of some sitcom Aziraphale had never heard of. But the characters were charming and the jokes made Crowley snigger and clutch at his arm every so often, so he had no intention of changing the channel anytime soon.

On occasion, Aziraphale looked down at Crowley and marveled that he was here. Outside, the sun was still shining and the earth still turning, and maybe it was the wine giving everything a rosy glow, but for once Aziraphale had hope that his future might hold some measure of happiness and peace. Even his memory of waking up and sobbing into his pillow this morning seemed like it had happened years ago. He couldn’t fathom how much his life had changed since the day Anthony Crowley stumbled into his bookshop. It would take some getting used to.

“What’re you thinking about?”

“Nothing in particular,” Aziraphale said. Crowley craned around to look at him with a _go_ _on_ gesture, and he sighed. “The future, I suppose. Rome may not be in the cards any longer, but this village is rather lovely. I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think I would be unhappy to spend the rest of my life here.”

“Hm,” Crowley said, noncommittal. “Yeah, s’alright. Had a look around while I was trying to find out where you lived. Lots of… nature.”

“Is that a bad thing? I thought you liked plants.”

“Well, the ones out in the wild don’t scare as easy as the kind you keep inside,” Crowley said sagely. “You try walking out into a field and telling off the wildflowers, they don’t care, they just ignore you. It’s more of a challenge to keep them in line than potted plants, cause the potted ones? You’ve got them right under your thumb, completely at your mercy, and if they ever _dare_ to be less than perfect…”

He made some grinding noises to imitate a garbage disposal, and Aziraphale nearly inhaled his wine from laughter.

“But you think you can do that with the ones out in the garden?” Crowley said while Aziraphale was still sputtering. “No! As far as they’re concerned, you’re nobody. Just some guy who turns up every so often, gives them water and fertilizer, then sods off and leaves them to it. They make their own rules, and the more you try to punish them, the more they rebel, until you might as well admit it’s not even _your_ garden anymore, it’s theirs, and even if the seeds came from you, it’s not… it’s a completely different… where was I going with this?”

“Erm,” Aziraphale said. “Gardens?”

“ _Gardens_ , yes! Your garden! I saw the state of it, it’s a mess! Weeds everywhere, flowers not blooming…”

“Well, excuse me!” Aziraphale said snippily. “I’ve been very busy! I hardly go out there anyway. What do I care how it looks?”

“ _I_ care.”

“And who asked for your opinion?”

“I’m saying I could fix it for you!”

Aziraphale blinked. Crowley also blinked, then snatched the wine from his hands and took a big gulp. “If you let me,” he mumbled at the television. “If you like. If I… stayed.”

“If you…?” Aziraphale said, thrown off because he had assumed that was a foregone conclusion. Of _course_ Crowley was staying. Their plans for the future had never been set in stone, but they had spoken of eventually living together, sharing a house or a flat, whatever they could find, the details hadn’t mattered overly much.

But it was one thing to fantasize about that future and quite another to commit to it once it arrived. And… he _did_ want to commit. Perhaps it was foolish, perhaps Crowley would become restless within a week and resent being tied to one boring village forever, or perhaps Aziraphale would prove himself impossible to live with, what with his tendency to gather clutter and staunch refusal to compromise. He could think of a hundred little reasons inviting Crowley to stay indefinitely might be a terrible idea.

But those little reasons all paled in comparison to the one Big Reason.

“Crowley…”

“Look, it’s fine if you want your space, I get it,” Crowley babbled. “I can go anytime you say the word…”

“ _Crowley._ I love you.”

Crowley appeared to choke on nothing and twisted around so hard he nearly fell off the couch. “Nrgk?!”

“I apologize if I never made that clear before,” Aziraphale said, nervous all of a sudden. His hand went to twiddle with his ring out of habit and met only empty air, so he wrung his hands instead. “Truth be told, I had thought we _both_ made out feelings known when we promised to go to Rome together…”

“We did, I did, we have!” Crowley grabbed at his hand and cradled it against his chest, a gesture that did wonders for calming Aziraphale’s racing heart. “Just, you know… didn’t want to make assumptions, is all. You know me, I’m paranoid as anything, and Hastur said some stuff that… never mind, forget him, point is…”

“Is?”

It looked like this part was causing Crowley physical agony. His face made a number of interesting expressions until it settled somewhere between desperately vulnerable and vaguely constipated.

“...ve you too…”

Aziraphale could hardly restrain his beaming smile. “What was that?”

“I said _I love you too_ , you insufferable bastard! Go on, tell the whole world, why don’t you? The hardened criminal Anthony J. Crowley has officially gone soft for the one bookseller in Soho who can’t sell a book to save his life…”

“ _Can’t_ and _won’t_ are two very different concepts.”

“It’s gonna be hard to get rid of me,” Crowley said, still apparently determined to sabotage himself. “Just warning you right now, I’m more clingy than a boa constrictor. I’m also a neat freak, at some point I’ll probably upset you by sorting your books in the wrong order, or you’ll wake up in the morning and find me reorganizing the kitchen…”

“Yes, well, I hardly sleep at all these days, you’ll likely need ear plugs to drown out my pacing,” Aziraphale challenged. “There might be days when I become lost in my reading or so absorbed in a new hobby that I’ll fail to pay you any attention. I’m sure I’ll also forget to water the garden and your plants will suffer for it…”

“I snore and steal blankets.”

“I practice sleight of hand when I’m bored.”

“I’ll be telling everyone I married you for money, just cause it’s funny.”

“And I will be telling them how _very_ romantic and thoughtful you are and how you write poetry on a regular basis.”

“No one will believe that!”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said with his very best I’m Going To Tease You Mercilessly smile. “I’m afraid your fate is sealed. Everyone in this village is going to know that you are the _nicest…_ ”

“Stop it!”

“...the bravest, the most dashing…”

“Alright, that part’s true enough.”

“...so very noble and generous and _good._..”

“Lies! Slander! I’ll bite you if you keep going!”

“The very best friend and husband I could _ever_ ask for.”

Crowley hissed at him. Aziraphale only laughed and kissed the top of his head. “You’ve stayed by my side through so much,” he said. “Now I want to be by yours. For as long as you'll have me. As you said… we’re on our own side.”

He felt a pair of arms snake around him as Crowley squirmed closer and tucked his head to Aziraphale’s chest, one ear pressed to his heartbeat. “Our side,” he said in quiet affirmation.

Aziraphale hummed.

“...I don’t like your new name, by the way.”

“What? Francis Eastgate? I think it sounds dignified.”

“I’m _not_ calling you that in public. Absolutely not.”

“That’s alright, we’ll just stick with pet names outside the cottage. What do you think of pumpkin?”

“I think I might retract everything I just said about wanting to live with you and walk out that door, see if I don’t.”

Aziraphale laughed. They both did.

Many miles away, what was left of their former coworkers were stewing in their prison cells, and just down the street R.P. Tyler was attempting to explain to the police how a stolen car had ended up parked in front of his house. Across the village, Adam Young and his mother were baking apple pie together and conspiring to bring it to that kindly Mr. Eastgate tomorrow and invite him to a party next weekend. They would receive quite the surprise when the door opened and they were greeted instead by a Mr. Ashtoreth. The word _husband_ would be floated for the first time, and Adam would look on in astonishment and make a point of quietly telling Mr. Asthoreth that he was glad the bad people in London hadn’t got to him, too. Crowley would subsequently freak out about psychic children and need a moment to calm down in the other room.

But for now, there was warmth and laughter and tender words and a complete disinterest in anything outside the sanctuary of the cottage. And while there might not have been any nightingales singing, there was a definite sense that whoever was in charge Up There was looking down with a smile on their face.


End file.
